Chasing Naruto
by Ipod384
Summary: Instead of Naruto chasing after Sasuke to bring him back to konoha, Sasuke is chasing Naruto to bring NARUTO back to the Konoha.
1. Chapter 1

CHASING NARUTO CHAPTER 1

Sasuke's perspective

As I raced through the trees towards my best friend, I could not fathom how I had not seen the signs, I mean, I had seen them before, in Itachi. But I needed to know why. I had to understand, why would he leave, after convincing me to stay? If I had to guess now, it all started six months ago, about a week after my first Chunin exam.

**Seven months ago...**

I had just begun my genjutsu training with Kakashi, it was arduous and painful, but my Sharingan was progressing nicely, according to anybody who had known one before the massacre. It had been a long day and I was just starting to regain my chakra. I activated my Sharingan just to test it out. It came on without pain, so I assumed my chakra was getting back to normal levels. As I casually strolled through the village, I came upon the river that split the village into two distinctive pieces. It was a beautiful day and the water slowly bubbled by. I looked around me to check if anybody was near, and once I was satisfied, I leaned up against one of the rails on one of the many bridges and admired its peacefulness. The reason I had looked around was because I knew that if Naruto or Sakura saw me, I would never hear the end of it.

I must have simply enjoyed the tranquility of the sight for five minutes, before I noted something unusual about it. It seemed that the water level was slightly rising, and as time went on, I noticed it begin to rapidly rise, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a surge rip down the length of the river and only barely evaded the splash that would have surely knocked me off my feet. I was alarmed to say the least, so I ran along the side of the river in the direction that the wave had come from, to see that a battle was going on between Kakashi, Guy, Kurenai, Asuma and two people wearing large black robes with a red cloud print. Upon closer inspection, Kakashi looked like he was hurt, and had his Sharingan out. I was silently alarmed, and then excited. One of the two men was exceptionally tall, and had what appeared to be some sort of unusual sword, and he had blue skin. The other seemed to be of average height, and had black hair that was tied up in a pony-tail that was eerily familiar.

The genjutsu that I had learned that day was one that required eye contact, so I thought that if I could get the drop on at least one of them, the others might be able to better handle tall, dark and blue. I briefly recalled Rock Lee's speed and mimicked it. I appeared face to face with pony-tail and made eye contact. I remember identifying the Sharingan, and then realizing who I was messing with, I put too much chakra into the genjutsu, and thus failed in the execution and then I tried to punch him, but he quickly and efficiently broke my arm and sent me flying. I recall these events rather stoically, but don't think for a second that I was not consumed by rage. Then I did the stupidest move possible, and stood up and looked him defiantly in the eyes, which was all he needed to put me under his Tsukuyomi.

For what I recall as the next Seventy-Two hours, I relived my parent's and clan's deaths, in graphic detail. After all of that, there was only darkness. I don't really know how I can really relate time in what that abyss was to me, but it felt like both forever and only a few seconds. When I woke up, I opened my eyes and looked around to see that I was in the hospital, with Sakura by my side. She saw my eyes and immediately shouted at me, "OHMYGAWDSASUKEAREYOUALRIGHT?!"

I flinched and then glowered at her, she could be such a pain in the ass. Then all of what had happened recently flew into my mind, and I rapidly started to scan the room for my murderous brother. I shouted, "Where is Itachi?! Why was he here? Where the hell is Kakashi?"

As I shouted all of this Sakura looked at me incredulously and then mumbled something about fetching the nurse. She quickly left the room and I moved to get up. "Granny Tsunade said that you shouldn't move until she sees you to do a final check-up," said Naruto.

And as I looked around me I noticed that he wasn't there, thinking I was crazy, I just continued to move. But then he spoke again, "I told you Granny wouldn't want you to move, so just sit still..."

Again I scanned the room, then looked up, expecting another one of Naruto's monkey-tricks, but he wasn't there, in fact, the only person who was there, was some poor soul in a full-body cast. I twitched my leg, and Naruto once again forewarned me, "Don't. Move. Stupid."

I checked under my bed and then under my covers, but no Blondie. So I sighed and said, "Where the hell are you hiding Naruto?"

"Over here dummy!" was all I got for a response, but then I noticed the body cast seem to squirm...oh yeah, that was most definitely Naruto...

I shook myself and remembered about Itachi, so I swung my feet out of my bed and started for the door. As I was going out the door, Naruto stopped me with this comment, "So, you are going to go after Itachi?"

I stopped in mid-step. Who had told him about Itachi? "What?" I asked, "What do you know about my brother?"

"He is the one whom you have sworn to kill, right?" Naruto replied, "He killed your entire clan, and then told you to grow strong and then take revenge, didn't he? He attacked the village recently. You saw him and went nuts, the entire village saw what he did to you. I was part of the team that went out to convince Granny Tsunade to come back to the village and fix you. That guy has some serious jutsu in his disposal, if I was you, I would just drop this whole thing."

I turned to him and responded, "You don't know what it is like to lose everything, Naruto, and that is what he did to me, he took away everything I held dear to my heart. What do you know about any of that?!"

By the end of that I was yelling at him. He calmly replied, "You know, I didn't have anybody here for the longest time, I was a nobody, but then I met Iruka-sensei, and then Kakashi, and then you and Sakura, and I guess I started to think of Iruka as my father, and of you like maybe a brother...Don't tell me that I don't know what it feels like to hate, while Itachi was here, he killed Iruka."

My eyes widened, did he really feel that way? Then all of his words registered, and I snapped back at him, "If he killed Iruka, whom you say is like a father to you, then why the hell are you trying to turn me off of my path?"

Then Naruto said something incredibly wise, (something I had never expected from him, at the time) He said, "Because that is exactly what he wants. I am not going to give him that satisfaction. He is the type of guy who takes pleasure in causing pain, and I won't let him cause me or my other special people any more pain by my going AWOL and hunting him down, only to get killed by his hand in the end. Don't get me wrong, if he shows his face around here again, I will face him, but I can't do that to the people I love."

I was deeply disturbed by Naruto's argument. He had a valid point, but I didn't have those special people. I had already lost all of them to Itachi. As if sensing my counter, Naruto said, "and, yeah, I don't know what it feels like to lose everybody, but I know that if you were to leave to go and take him out, then, I would do everything in my power to take you back. Itachi is a crazy and evil man, don't get me wrong, but he is not worth your time, here, you could make the village a better place, here, you could affect the lives of all the people who live here and here, is where one day you may revive your clan."

I sat stunned in the thoughts that were now racing through my head, I liked what Naruto was saying, but I could not accept the idea of Itachi getting away with all that he did, and I said so to Naruto, who nodded. He then said, "Look, on the way back to the village, I made Granny Tsunade promise to send out some ANBU to kill Itachi, and she gave me her word. Itachi will be taken care of, but not by you or me. I think the ANBU left as soon as I was hospitalized, as to how I got hospitalized, well, that is a story for another time and place, cause I feel the morphine kicking in again, nighty...night."

With that, Naruto fell into a deep slumber, with much snoring. I stood up and crept out of my bed just in time to see Sakura and a largely endowed Blonde woman walk in the room. I stared, not in an impolite way, but in a questioning way to the newcomer, and she introduced herself as Lady Tsunade. As I tried to make a polite as possible exit, she stopped me and said, "Look, I get the idea of why you want to kill your brother, it is understandable, really, it is...but I don't think that you will ever get that strong unless you start to really train like a Jonin level ninja, so today you will rest, and then tomorrow, you will begin training to defeat your brother. I know that your training has been a bit...slow shall we say to make sure that Naruto and Sakura could keep up, but as of today, Squad Seven is officially disbanded."

I wondered at how quickly she had adjusted to her role of Hokage, and then demanded, "What is it that you could offer me now that is so different from what has come before, I need power, not more teamwork lessons!"

Kakashi walked into the room in the middle of my little outburst, and then said, "because, Jonin training isn't entirely accurate, as of tomorrow, you are going to be trained as an ANBU. I will see to it personally, you will be trained by me until the next Chunin exam and then we shall see if you are ready for the true training to begin, after that, you will be trained by none other than the Gallant Jiraiya," he changed directions of conversation to Sakura, "and you shall be taken under the wing of Tsunade as you requested."

Sakura nodded eagerly, and then asked, "but wait, what about Naruto?"

Naruto was apparently awake again because he responded, "until the next Chunin exam, I will be training with Pervy-sage, then, I guess I will go to the toad mountain...I haven't thought about it too much since all this was decided, but I think that is how Pervy-sage said it would work."

**back in the present..**

It was this very conversation with Naruto that made the current situation all the more difficult to accept. Why would he leave now, and with Itachi? Why? I have all of these questions and absolutely no answers. For example, another question is why did Hinata leave the village too? Maybe something happened to the two of them on that night that drove them so far off the edge. It was about five months ago today...

**five months ago...**

Training had been going exceptionally well, I could feel myself getting drastically stronger by the day. Naruto and Jiraiya it seemed, were meant to be student and teacher. They had caused all kinds of trouble throughout the village now, and were usually banished to the training grounds on sight, simply to avoid property damage, and now they were running about the countryside, "training". They also seemed to have saved quite a few lives in their random acts of "ninjaosity." I had heard of all of this, but I wasn't really paying attention, I had other things on my mind. For example, in recent times, public opinion of the Hyuuga cursed seal had taken a turn for the worse, since Naruto's little scene in the Chunin exam, people had stopped allowing Hyuuga's to eat at their restaurants, or shopping in their stores in protest. That day, I had been in charge of guard duty around the Hyuuga household. It was my job to catalog all the people who came and left the household. There were twenty two people outside of the large estate. Hinata was with Shizune learning the fine art of healing salves and chakra control, Neji was out on a mission, and the other twenty were just out and about on private business.

I had changed a lot from my training. I no longer wore the t-shirt and shorts that I had been so fond of recently, but I had switched to the traditional garb for Uchiha ninja, which was white robe covering the upper body, and black, baggy shorts all being kept in place by traditional shinobi ropes. I had an ANBU issue sword stuck in my rope/belt and my headband hung around my neck. (AN: think a mini version of shippuden Sasuke, but with a headband.) I was meditating, and trying to keep my chakra signature as small as possible when twenty of the Hyuuga all walked back at the same time, two abreast and ten deep. They walked in a perfect march towards their home and I made note of each of them in the journal I was given by Hiashi. After they were gone, I have gathered what they did, but I do have many questions about how they did it, but I know who caused it. For after about thirty minutes a Yamanaka clan member walked up to the house and asked to be let in. "I can't let you in without permission from the clan head," I replied, "if you would give me a moment of your time, I will take care of it."

This man was not satisfied with that for whatever reason, and he barged past me and into the estates. The sight that awaited me gave me nightmares for weeks. The twenty who had walked in had silently killed women, children and the other members in complete silence. Then they had attacked the clan-head. Hiashi had killed them all with the curse seal as soon as he figured it all out. He had been too late to save Hanabi, however. He was holding his dead daughter in his arms amongst all the blood. The Yamanaka man then went forward and attempted to stab Hiashi, who promptly killed him, then twenty more Yamanakas came out. I was in total stultification, what the hell had happened to cause this? I broke the disaster seal in the scroll that Tsunade had given me in case something not even half as bad as this had happened. Then Hiashi just went to town on them, he took down ten before they finally overwhelmed him. As he lay dying, Hinata walked in from her daily training. She saw everything before her and dropped to her knees. Then something bloomed in her eyes that I had never seen before: hate. She stood up and attacked her clan's murderers. She seriously wounded three before the rest reacted, but by that time my training had kicked in and I began to disable them one by one. The remaining seven were soon tied up and ready for transport to the interrogation room. Tsunade arrived on the scene with Naruto and Jiraiya in tow. Tsunade ordered Naruto to take Hinata to the tower, and to wait for further instructions there, and for Jiraiya to go and get Inoichi.

The results of all the interrogations were that Inoichi was totally unaware of all this activity, and that this was the plan of a group of radicals. I don't think that Hinata ever believed it though, and after all of this stuff, Hinata seemed to have changed. She held herself differently, she no longer was shy, she was soft spoken still, and she wasn't bitter, but she seemed anxious to get something over with, maybe it was then that she started to talk to the Akatsuki, I don't think I will ever know, but I do know that this is when Hinata began to train with Naruto. After all of this, they were like peas in a pod, totally inseparable, and I don't think that Naruto even realized it at first.

I guess that I still wonder whether or not that tragedy contributed to Hinata's defection, but it definitely hit Neji harder than anybody would have thought. He was devastated to the point where he stopped training for a long, long time. It was only when he was pressed by urges from his teammates to train for the Chunin exams that he really began to train again, and that was some two months later.

**Back in the present...**

I knew that Naruto had headed off in this direction, but I couldn't guess if he was still heading this direction, truth be told, I was following my gut. Naruto was straight-forward, the trick in stopping him was to overpower him, which I was no longer sure I could do. His growth as a ninja was incredible, and I think, that it is because of the fact that like Rock Lee, he is a genius of hard work. I first really realized that we were equals I guess in the second round of Chunin exams.

**A month ago...**

The First two exams had been nearly the same as they were the time, before. They had even used the same questions. And because the exams were once again in Konoha, I found the Forrest of Death much less foreboding the second time around. For the following month, Kakashi had handed my training over to the seal master ANBU whose code name was: Weasel. It wasn't a month of training, per se, more like a month of experimentation. He toyed with the curse mark that Orochimaru had given me, and had quite accidentally activated it. Once we had done that, the rest of the work was simply learning to control that great and indisputably black chakra. I had begun to get the feel for it, and as the third exam was only a day away, I had begun to grasp the idea of only partially transforming my body, so that I could gain greater control of my actions. Naruto, had, according to rumor, begun elemental training while I was in the ANBU headquarters. He had made startling progress, according to Kakashi.

I went into the exams, knowing I would be impressed by my friend, but I was completely blown away. The first match was himself against Temari. He started out by casually walking down the steps to the arena, which immediately caught my attention, and Temari walked right next to him. They took their places, and the proctor began the match.

"Hey...Aren't you the one who Shikamaru let win?" he taunted, "If this is who I have to fight, then it should be no problem at all, I am going to own you."

Temari had tick marks all up and down her forehead while she said, "Well, I have got film on your attacks, and I have memorized your attack patterns, I am going to know what you are going to do before you do it."

"But are you going to be able to stop it?" Naruto's chakra began to visibly glow around his feet and then he did something that I had never seen before, he made the chakra contract and then explode, which propelled him forward at an astonishing rate. Once within a foot of Temari, he pulled back his fist and punched her right in the gut. I had activated my Sharingan as soon as the match had begun, so that I could refer to it later myself, and I could see that Temari had had the wind knocked out of her, quite easily. To her credit, she reacted well; she flipped back in midair and then swung her fan, doing her special wind-scythe jutsu to fend off Naruto.

With a poof of white smoke one of Naruto's shadow clones appeared and threw Naruto out of the deadly tornado's way. Naruto spun as he landed and formed three more shadow clones. The three clones sped forward and engaged Temari in combat, one by one Temari made them poof out of existence, and once they were all gone, Naruto was grinning from ear to ear, as if he had discovered some great secret in her attack patterns. Once more he created a shadow clone, but this time, the two of them started to form something in the real Naruto's right hand.

It was a ball of pure chakra rotating at high speeds in every direction imaginable. The chakra was rotating so fast, that it was making a strange noise. Naruto locked onto Temari and roared, "RASENGAN!"

Using his earlier chakra dash trick, he threw himself forward and straight into Temari's fan. This attack that I would come to know as the Rasengan, went straight to Temari and caused her to fly backwards while spinning in the air, and using my Sharingan, I saw that the attack actually disrupted Temari's chakra and thus, probably her internal organs. She had lost consciousness before she even hit the wall behind her. The proctor called the match and then called some medics to take Temari away. Internally, I was debating whether or not Temari had just stopped training, or if Naruto was just that good. The idea of fighting Naruto now was more than exciting, it was mouth watering, and it would be the perfect test to see if I was improving fast enough.

Naruto celebrated briefly in the middle of the arena and then bounded up the stairs, seemingly back to his old self. He beamed out to the crowd. The proctor announced that the next match would be between Gaara and Sakura. That match wasn't exactly much of one, Sakura had made leaps and bounds under the tutelage of Lady Tsunade, but she was no where near Gaara's league. He made the match short and sweet.

After Gaara was back up in the competitor's box, the proctor called Hinata and Rock Lee into the arena. I was quite sure that this too, wouldn't be much of a match, but I paid attention to it anyway, and I am glad I did. Hinata had come out of nowhere apparently. Rock Lee spewed his usual bit about the Flames of Youth and then began to pump his fist into the air. He shouted out to everybody in the arena, "I am getting excited!"

Hinata began the match by chakra dashing, (I guess that she and Naruto learned it from the same person) straight at Lee, and she began one of the infamous Gentle Fist combos, Lee blurred out from in front of Hinata and then blurred back into existence behind her, but she could see this coming with her Byakugan, so Hinata ducked under one of his punches, and began her assault anew. Lee blocked most of the hits, but I noticed that the color of his chakra had become disrupted, which meant that Hinata had hit some of his chakra nodes. Lee looked at her as if she had slapped him instead of disabled him. He jumped backwards and waited for her to make her move. She dropped low into the primary Gentle Fist stance, but Lee became alarmed, and while Hinata was fine-tuning her chakra, he went in for the kill. He launched her into the air, and began his Primary Lotus move. As he was about to slam Hinata into the dirt, she broke free of Lee's bandages, which slightly broke her fall.

She rolled forward and turned around to face Lee. He was swerving around on his feet, apparently a little dizzy. She dashed at him again, but as she did it, the chakra in her hands seemed to change color, it was subtle, but I could discern it. She slammed both her palms onto Lee's torso and sent him literally flying. He flipped and landed awkwardly. The proctor was about to call the match when Hinata stopped him and pointed at Lee, he was getting up. He screamed, "I am going to use all of my power!"

His skin turned red, and his hair seemed to be waving up and down with the pulse of his own heartbeat his chakra flowed visibly from his body. He had opened five of the eight gates. He dashed forward and did what Guy called, "The Mad Dance of Infinity." which meant that he went absolutely ape-shit against Hinata. She took all the blows, once they were done, she surely looked haggard, but there was an air of determination about her. She calmed down and activated her Byakugan. Then it hit me, she had down everything she had without the use of her Blood Limit. It was astounding. Dropped into a new stance and waited for Lee. He charged in at her again, but this time, she was ready, so she dropped under him, and pushed him into the air. Then she formed long and very sharp needles out of chakra and jumped into the air. She begun to spin in the air, and slash at Lee and as she went, she disrupted the color of his chakra at an alarming pace, she was moving so quick that I had trouble following her exact movements. Her needles actually closed Lee's chakra points again and then sealed the gates he had opened.

Lee fell to the ground, totally unconscious. I could not help but stare, when the hell had all this happened to her? As I silently pondered at her growth, the proctor called my attention. Neji was already in the ring, waiting for me. I shook myself and jumped down into the ring. The crowd was pounding their feet and different people were screaming out "Neji!" or "Sasuke!" Once again, it seemed that I was the match to watch. I pointed at Neji and said, "Alright, I am going to take care of you!"

"It is interesting," Neji remarked, "that this match happens, I guess the greatest bloodline of Konoha will be decided here and now, I won't lose to you, Uchiha Sasuke."

Right from the get-go, I mimicked Naruto's chakra dash trick, but Neji seemed to have been waiting for just that, because he started his chakra rotation just as I was going to hit him, which repelled me effortlessly. As I observed him continue to spin even after I had been repelled, I remembered what Kakashi had told me, this guy was a close combat fighter, which meant I had two options, ninjutsu, or genjutsu. I silently formulated a plan of attack and then jumped backwards onto the wall, and struck the same pose that I had first used for Chidori. Neji had apparently heard of this move, because he had activated his Byakugan and was staring boldly up at me, as if daring to try it. Then I did something he obviously didn't expect, "Fire style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"

Three high speed fire balls shot down at him and he just barely dodged out of the way, so kept up my assault. After about three more volleys on my end, he just started to do his rotation again, which caused my fireballs to bounce back and hit the dirt, doing nothing, when I stopped shooting, he stopped rotating, so I established eye contact, which was all I needed. I put him into a genjutsu that would keep him absolutely still, and thus made him a perfect target. I began to charge my Chidori. Once it was fully formed, I charged down at him and as I was charging down at him, he began to slowly move out of position, but at the rate he was going, it wouldn't be enough. I got a solid hit with my jutsu, but then his body turned into a log, and my hand was secure inside of it. He smirked as he said, "But now, you are in range..."

My eyes widened as I knew what was coming next. He began his sixty four trigrams combo. And as he did so, I could feel my chakra fade out of my control. "SIXTY-FOUR PALMS!"

I flew backwards and hit the wall. Smoke poured out in front of me. I knew there would only be one way for me to win this fight now. So I let the first level of my curse-mark go. The black chakra flooded my system and re-opened all of my chakra points. The black marks appeared all across my left side and I knew that my left eye had turned black and a sickly yellow. Neji stared at me, in confusion, but that was all the opening I needed. I charged another Chidori, and dashed at him. As the curse chakra mingled with my own, my Chidori turned a sickening purple. Neji began his rotation, but this time, it wasn't enough. I broke through, and hit him solidly with my jutsu, I felt his blood on my hand, and removed it. He had a deep hole in the right side of his chest. He collapsed, and the proctor called the match. My match concluded the first round of matches, and as such, the combatants were to receive a break and food. The proctor called an "intermission" for the audience, and he directed us to a door inside the waiting box. Once inside, Tsunade personally saw to our wounds and then we were allowed to do as we liked for about an hour, inside this room were soldier pills, chakra recovery drinks, and electrolyte water. Once I had had my fill, I went to go find Naruto, but he was already talking with Gaara, and Hinata was facing the other direction, as if standing guard. I tried to walk around her, but she intercepted me. As I began to protest, she said, "Naruto and Gaara have asked to not be disturbed by anyone. Please, sit down on one of the chairs behind you and I will let them know about you once they are done talking."

After all this she bowed to me, but the whole time, stared me defiantly in the eyes, as if daring me to try anything else. I put on my best stoicism face and sighed and sat down right there. I tried to read their lips, but they were facing the other direction. At one point Gaara was shocked by what Naruto said, and Naruto slumped. Gaara obviously said the right thing, because Naruto nodded and stood back up. Gaara continued to talk for a long time, and Naruto kept nodding, and eventually, Naruto stopped Gaara and said something to him. Gaara's smiled at him and nodded, holding out his little finger and Naruto put out his own, and they obviously made some sort of promise. I could read Gaara's lips this time, he said, "That is the promise of a life-time, Uzumaki Naruto."

They turned around and saw Hinata standing in between them and me, and I saw surprise flash across Naruto's face and then a deep anger. He stomped over to me and said, "Did you use your Sharingan to read our lips? Did you?"

I shook my head; it was mostly the truth anyway. He looked like he was going to say something else, when Hinata said, "Naruto...I made sure he didn't use his Sharingan, so don't freak out."

Naruto calmed down immediately, but I was still in awe of Hinata, she hadn't turned red from simply being in his presence, and now, she was actually talking _over_ him? Something was up, but at the time, I couldn't tell what.

After our brief respite, we were called back to the combatant's box, so the matches could commence. The proctor called Naruto and Gaara down into the arena. Naruto and Gaara walked down to the arena nonchalantly, and then walked five paces apart. "I am gonna run wild!" shouted Naruto.

"Take your time," replied Gaara, "and enjoy the terror of the sand..."

The crowd roared as the battle began, and I turned on my Sharingan in case Naruto showed any more new tricks. Naruto dashed up to Gaara and was in the process of punching him when Gaara attacked. Sand flew up from all directions and encased Naruto. Chakra exploded out from the lump of sand, and Naruto fell to the ground, landed on his feet, and jumped backwards. He pulled two kunai out of his sleeves, (one for each hand) and put some chakra into each as he threw them. Gaara put up his defense of sand, but the kunai went through the sand somehow. Kakashi would later explain that Naruto used his wind affinity to enhance the blades of the kunai, so that they would even penetrate Gaara's sand. Gaara's blood splashed onto the sand in front of him, after the kunai gashed his left leg and scalp. Naruto then grabbed at something in the air in front of him and began to retract his two kunai. They were apparently attached to strings, but Gaara's sand wrapped around the kunai, and Gaara used that to pull Naruto towards him. With an audible thud, Naruto landed on the ground in front of Gaara, who then used his special jutsu, the sand burial. Blood seeped out of the coffin, and I really thought Naruto was dead, until his severely broken body tumbled out of the sand.

Gaara had used enough pressure to merely break bones, not implode him, thankfully. Gaara began to signal medics to come down and help his opponent out, but Naruto crawled onto his knees and said, "Don't underestimate me!"

The further he stood up, the more a strange chakra began to pour out of him. It was red in color, and it made my hairs stand up on end. The birth-marks on his face became more pronounced and as weird as this sounds, his eyes turned a deep red to match the chakra. It was obvious that whatever this chakra was, it was healing him quite rapidly. Gaara charged forward to stop this transformation before it was too late, but he was too late. Naruto appeared behind Gaara and punched through the sand that was his shield, and landed a solid punch. Gaara flew forward and Naruto appeared in front of him and kicked him back to his original spot. Now it was Gaara who was in bad shape. Naruto's powerful combo was making quick work out of the terror of the sand. Eventually, Naruto decided that Gaara was done fighting, because he stopped punching and called down the medics. It was all done in moments.

Naruto and Gaara were both rushed to the hospital for their wounds, so I walked down to the arena, expecting my match with Hinata. I looked over to her and said, "I don't feel like I am gonna lose."

"You are within range," was all she would say for the entire match.

I tried to jump back, but it was in vain, she just rushed me and began the sixty four palms combo. At the end of it all, I fell to the ground, on my back. I brought out the first level of the curse mark again, but Hinata was ready for that. As I stood up she spun and struck me on the center of my chest, and with her added wind chakra, I caught air. I smashed into a hard place for the second time that day. I looked around as the dust cleared to find myself embedded in a tree. In addition, I could feel that my heartbeat was irregular. Hinata had her Byakugan activated, and she simply stood there, watching me feel pain. I placed my hand over my heart and used a pulse of lightning chakra to fix my heart, and I coughed up blood. With nothing more than a slight woosh, Hinata appeared next to me, with a kunai at my throat. I shouted, "Lightning style: Chidori current!"

Hinata staggered backwards in shock to my jutsu, and I used that opportunity to jump out of my wooden prison and shoot some heavy duty fireballs. Hinata avoided the first two, but the third got her right arm, scorching it. We made eye contact and I launched one of Kurenai's favorite genjutsu. It ensnared the opponent and gave me the opportunity to stab them, but suddenly I felt myself wrapped up once again in a tree. Hinata's torso grew out of the wood, with a kunai in hand. She had reflected the genjutsu. She was full of surprises today. I stopped my chakra just in time to prevent my imminent death. She stabbed and missed. I charged a curse-powered Chidori, and charged toward Hinata, but she performed a deft substitution jutsu.

I turned in mid-air and met her kunai with one of my own. We glared at each other, and then shoved each other away. "Fire style:" I shouted, "Grand Fireball jutsu!"

It was a direct hit, but when the smoke cleared, Hinata was standing up, her clothes on fire, but a look of iron determination in her eyes. So I mimicked Rock Lee's speed, and ran behind her and chopped at the back of her neck, sending her into unconsciousness. I withdrew the black chakra back into its seal and walked up to the combatant's box, and then into the back room for medical attention. Naruto was lying on a nearby table, completely out of it, by the look of it, and Tsunade pointed to a nearby table. I sat down, and she went to work on me right away. In about ten minutes I was beginning to feel human again. I walked outside of the room for a bit of fresh air, and once I really felt back to normal, I walked back inside. Naruto was sitting up, and Tsunade was carefully studying him. He saw me and his eyes narrowed. "What crawled up your ass?" I asked him.

"Let's go outside," said Naruto, "Fight. Me. Now."

"You're still recovering; just relax for a bit, the fight can wait."

"Shut the hell up and fight me!"

It was then that I noticed his eyes, the normal, stupidly cheerful blue had become ice-cold. He was dead serious. He continued, "You always think that you're better than me. I won't stand for it! You think that you are better than me because of those damn eyes! I don't care what clan you're from."

I found myself smiling as I said, "Then the timing couldn't be better because I want to fight you too."

"Let's go."

He walked out of the room and jumped down into the arena. I followed suit. The crowd roared in excitement, they hadn't been expecting us for some time. "You are such a loser," he said, "Who do you think you are fooling?"

"You're talking a lot of trash, Naruto, are you regretting calling me out?"

"Shut up and bring it!"

I looked him up and down, there was something _wrong_ about him, then it hit me, he didn't have his headband on. "Put on you're headband," I said, "I'll wait."

"I don't need it..."

"Just put it on!"

"You couldn't put a single scratch on my forehead!"

"That isn't it!" I cried, "It is a symbol of Konoha ninja, fighting as equals!"

"I already asked you!" he shouted, "Who do you think you're fooling? YOU THINK THAT WE'RE EQUALS?!"

"Yeah! I do. I have always been better than you Naruto!"

"You're making me angry, Sasuke!"

"That is because you're still weak, isn't it, Naruto?"

We both charged at each other, and punched with our right hand, then blocked the other's punch with the left, resulting in a stalemate. I disengaged and jumped into the air. I shouted, "Fire Style: Grand Fireball jutsu!"

I hit Naruto's general area, but I wasn't ready for what came next. The smoke cleared, and Naruto and two shadow clones were all charging something up. When it was done, it looked like a Rasengan stuck in the middle of a gigantic shuriken. Naruto cried out, "Wind Style: Rasenshuriken!"

I focused all of my power into one Chidori and shouted, "Chidori, The One Thousand Birds!"

I started towards Naruto in mid-air, and he jumped up towards me with his new creation. Right as we were about to meet, Jiraiya appeared between us and sent us different directions. I flew into a wall which shattered upon contact with my jutsu. Naruto, it seemed, was able to retract his new jutsu before he collided with the wall, so he merely bounced off. I rolled over onto my butt. "Why the hell would you throw _that _jutsu at a friend, Naruto? You know how powerful it is."

Naruto ignored him and walked straight up to me, spat at my feet and said, "I am done with you, Sasuke."

He turned around on his heel and hopped out of the stadium. That was the last I saw of him.

**Back in the present...**

About an hour ago I had received word that Naruto and Hinata had run away. I was selected to be on the team of five to take them back. It was me, Shikamaru, Neji, Kiba and Chouji. I want to know why they left. I thought it had been Naruto's dream to become Hokage, but that is never going to happen now. He will be lucky if he isn't put in jail for life, but I have to bring him back, because deep down, I know he would do the same for me...

_**END CHAPTER**_

Author's Notes

I felt that the direction that I was taking Chasing Naruto was the wrong one, so I originally only wanted to redo a couple chapters, but I went back to read some of my earlier chapters and I realize that I have improved, and some of the stuff I wrote earlier on just...sucked. There is no other word for it. It plain sucked, so now I have decided to redo the whole thing, and I have rethought the entire story, this will not be the same Chasing Naruto, the premise is the same, but it will be greatly different, in my eyes at least, I hope you enjoy it.

I would also like to thank my new beta, shingen takeda! You rock man.


	2. Chapter 2

Re: Chasing Naruto Chapter 2

**Hinata's perspective**

I activated my Byakugan and focused backwards, Sasuke was in pursuit, as according to plan. "Sasuke and the others are now following us, Naruto, just like Tsunade said they would. What does Itachi want us to do next?"

"I think," he replied, "the closest hide-out is in the Final Valley...we will have to beat them there, at least. How fast are they going?"

"Quite fast, they will catch up to us before then..."

"Then the only option is to use those drones that Sasori planted for us. I will activate the seal."

"Right. After that, we just have to hope that they will win. Remind me why we are doing this again..."

"We have to make sure that the Akatsuki will not move against our village, we need to secure seats. You know all that, why do you ask?"

I shook myself, I asked him that because I still didn't believe that this was happening. It all started about five months ago.

**Five months ago...**

It was my birthday, and my day off. My father had, however, called me into the 'family rooms'. It was the center of the complex, and was mainly used for the sake of showing off the strength of the clan to village officials, namely, the Hokage, Tsunade. Once I had received the summons, I quickly changed into formal clothes and hurried over. I entered the room to find my father, the clan elders, the village elders and the Hokage herself. I immediately began to prepare the tea for such a meeting, as that was what I usually did, but my father stopped me with a hand motion. I subsided into the proper sitting position and waited for further instructions. My father began, "Hinata, I have called you here today to give you some information about some of the goings-on of the clan government, because, you are the heir to the head spot. So listen carefully and do exactly as I say."

I nodded in bewilderment, he had never shown such interest in me. So I sat there quietly as the conversation began anew. "Look, back to what we were saying," Tsunade said, "We have reason to believe that several clans and groups in the village are greatly upset by the curse seal tradition of your clan. We have stopped every step in the government to outlaw anti-curse mark legislation, but with that out of the way, many will resort to violence. I know that you can take care of yourselves better than we can, but if we appear to be protecting you, many will think twice about trying to openly draw you into combat. For once your elders, my elders, and myself all agree about this, so why don't we give it a shot?"

My father sighed and then nodded his head in assent, "I guess I won't mind the Uchiha boy to stand guard, but he will not have direct access to the clan grounds, understood?"

Tsunade nodded and then said, "That only leaves that one _other _matter I had to speak with you about. I am going to have to ask all the elders and the girl to leave for this, as you know."

The room exploded with mutterings, after all, what could be so important that the elders were not on the "list" of people who were allowed to know? I myself was partly curious, and partly anxious to get the heck out of that room. "My daughter can stay," my father said as I got to get up, "I have already talked to _you-know-who_ about her, he finally figured out how we could solve her problem."

I started to shiver in fear, for when it came to trying to get my skill level up, my father would try anything to get results. He had tried good cop, bad cop, he had tried different teachers, detention, start-over-with-the-slightest-mistake training, and even hypnotism. Whatever this new scheme was, it was sure to be painful, and most likely a waste of time. Tsunade seemed to see all of this from my simple reaction. So she waited for the elders to leave and then she looked at my father and said, "What could he possibly do to correct the seal?"

"Seal?" After I had said it, it didn't register that I had said it for about five seconds. I blushed furiously at my father's reaction (the standard Angry-Hiashi eyebrow twitching) and began to apologize when Tsunade reached into her robe and pulled out two scrolls, one with a black background and red cloud print, the other was lavender in color, and tossed it to me. I caught them both and looked down at them. I opened the Lavender scroll first. It was addressed to me.

Dearest Daughter,

My dearest daughter, if you are reading this, then it means that I have failed. I have failed in removing your curse. An evil man by the name of Madara Uchiha has altered your personality. You are a kind-hearted individual, I hope you know, that isn't wrong, but your lack of confidence is something that shouldn't ail you. In this rapid loss of character, your ability to be a ninja has been deeply affected. For he also sealed more than half of your chakra in this process. I want you to stay compassionate, but you must have some steel deep in you, and I know that you shall desire that too. I hope that you will meet the man who can help you, for we know of only one other man who could possibly undo this, but he has not matured to that stage of growth yet, so we have had to wait. I know this is hard to hear, but you shall be very powerful once this seal is removed.

Another matter that I want you to understand is, you have a greater destiny than being clan head, you must be a protector of this noble village. I entrust you this sacred duty. I want you to understand, talent is great, but one may only become legendary, through hard work. I hope that you have worked hard to get where you are now, but you must keep working even after this. This journey that lays ahead of you will be lonely and dangerous, for you must never be defeated, but don't worry too much, it has been arranged that the son of the Fourth Hokage shall also make this journey along with you. I know that you will get along just fine. Have confidence, my child.

Your Mother,

Aria Hyuuga

I was shocked to say the least. I didn't think that I was good enough to do this...in truth; I was close to tears in pure fear. It was then that my father placed his hand on my shoulder, and held me closely to his chest, to comfort me. He had never done anything of that kind to me before. As I calmed down from just listening to his heart beat, I opened the second scroll. It was the mission statement of the Akatsuki. It turned out that this organization was founded by the first kages, and it had been working in the shadows ever since, keeping the peace. Now, it was determined that I was to study under one of its members to one day, replace him. His name was Itachi Uchiha. The man who had killed his entire clan. This scroll also contained a detailed description of why the massacre was necessary, and how I would be turned into a member.

As I read in awe of this man who had given up everything to protect the village, I realized that that was what my mother and father were asking me to do, I was to give up everything and go along with this boy to do god knew what. As I read the scroll more, a seal came up on the paper. It released a crow, with a Sharingan eye. It looked at me, and I fell under its genjutsu.

I found myself in a rather large and empty cave, with the only decoration being a throne carved into the cave wall. As I scanned the room, crows flew out of the shadows and formed into man sitting on the throne. He had black hair tied up in a pony tail, and the Sharingan. This was Itachi. "It is an honor," he said, "to finally meet you, Hinata. I have been waiting for a long time."

I took a step backwards in fear from him, but he stopped me with, "Calm down. I am not going to hurt you, Hinata; I am here to help you achieve your true potential. Just take my hand, and your growth will begin."

To say that I was scared would be a severe understatement, I was downright paralyzed with fear. Itachi seemed to see this, and then he added, "I can show you all the proof you need to see that you will become great Hinata. I know that you must be frustrated at yourself, now. I can feel it emanating from you. Just wait there."

A poof of smoke appeared next to me, and I gasped. The thing next to me looked like a being caught between being a crow and a woman. She turned her head and looked me right in the eyes and said in a raspy, unnatural voice, "_**I am the Morrigan. I live in the past, the present, and the future. You shall see things that will amaze you. And, because I like the look of you, I am going to leave a bit of me with you. You will be my priestess on this earth, and if you do as I ask, I shall 'upgrade' your eyes. You must release the Nine-tails from Uchiha Madara's jutsu. It is time for you, whose name means sunshine to shine...here is what you shall become if you accept Itachi's offer..."**_

Blackness took my vision, then I saw two figures standing on a high wall. They were wearing matching clothes, black robes with red cloud prints, and wicker hats to conceal their faces. One took of their hat, she had long black hair, and light, lavender eyes with no pupils. I realized that it was me. She jumped down from the wall and landed in the midst of at least fifty ninja. She (I) let out a burst of chakra, and they all fell to the ground, and I somehow knew that they were dead. The second figure jumped down to join me, and he took off his hat, he had blond, spiky hair, and ice-blue eyes. It was Naruto! The son of the Fourth Hokage. It was too much for me to process, and I started to get faint at the thought. But as soon as the vision had started it ended, and I was left severely lacking.

Itachi was standing in front of me once again and he said, "I will train you to be that, I will take you to places beyond your imagination, and you will become powerful, I can make you into all the things that you want to be...but there is the price of leaving everything behind. Can you do it? This will take more courage then you think, and if you mess up at all, you will die? Are you ready for that?"

I began to shyly nod my head, but Itachi's eyes narrowed. "But first thing is first," he said, "If you want to win over that knuckle-head, you will need to be more courageous. So from this moment on, when I take off this curse from you, promise yourself to never stutter again, to never quietly do things when you should be protesting, and to always think of what is best for you and your special people. Do you promise me?"

I thought about it for a second, this was exactly what I wanted, I wanted to be as strong as Naruto, I wanted to be as confident as Naruto, and I wanted to keep Naruto for myself. I looked deeply into Itachi's eyes and I nodded. I would no longer be the old Hinata, I would be reborn through this training, into what I wanted to be, because like Naruto always said, 'you never get anything from sitting there and hoping.' Itachi undid the curse, and I felt power rip through my body, and I knew that it was now Hinata's time to shine. I took a knee before my new master and asked, "What do you need me to do now, Master Itachi?"

He reached down and handed me a scroll, and said, "You and Naruto must learn to do all the techniques on this scroll. It is a scroll that I received from my master, your mother, so I think you should do fine."

I nodded and accepted the scroll, and the genjutsu ended. When I opened my eyes Tsunade and my father were staring at me questioning what had just happened, so I said, "I have accepted my life's calling. What Itachi didn't explain is bugging me, why did Madara do what he did?"

"He hates this village," my father replied, "and he hates everybody in it, he ran amok while the fourth dealt with the Nine-tails. Yours was one of the more permanent curses he left. Another example would be the drastic need of the Akamichi to consume food to generate chakra."

As I thought breifly about what I had ahead of me a voice seemed to rip through my head. It was the Morrigans' _**"Remember our deal, you free my friend, and I shall give you what you need to survive, and I shall give you what you need to get what you want...free the nine-tails...when you are able..."**_

I stood up and bowed deeply to both my father and the Hokage, and ran out of the room; I had to speak to Naruto. I ran around the village, scanning for him, I checked Ichiraku's, I checked the training grounds and even his apartment, but to my great surprise, it was he who would find me. I had been looking for him for about an hour at that point, and the sun was beginning to set, he was talking with Sakura while walking through the park. They stopped at a nearby bench, and once Sakura's back was to me, I stood up and made eye contact with Naruto and showed him the scroll with the red cloud print on it. To his credit, he didn't respond as he usually would, but he instead ended his conversation with Sakura quickly and rather rudely and then ran off in the other direction, but as I watched him he turned around and came to meet me. He looked at me incredulously and asked what I knew. "I was just taken in as _you-know-who_'s apprentice. We are to train under him at the same time," I said.

"You seem..." Naruto pointed out, "different. But I want to know something even more than that, why would you want to come along with us? Don't you want to stay here?"

"I want to be with the person who I value most in this village, Naruto."

"Well, who is that?"

I am still astounded occasionally by some of his responses to stuff like this. So I expanded on my comment, "I want to be with you, Naruto... you are the person who I have been following so closely, and I do that because you inspire me."

Naruto blushed as I went on, and then sputtered something involving the words 'too and kind' and 'flattering'. But I didn't wait for him to make up something that would make this situation more awkward, so I did something impulsive, something that I wouldn't normally do, I leaned in towards him and kissed him, at first it was merely a peck on the lips, but I moved it forward quite quickly. However, once it was really getting good, somebody interrupted us, it was none other than Sakura Haruno. She was in a word, mollified. She sputtered and shook and then turned around and walked away. I looked over to Naruto, but he had fallen onto the ground and was bleeding profusely from his nose. I had done that to him? Damn, maybe I was better than I thought. Once I was sure he was okay, I told him to meet me at the forest of death for our training tomorrow, and so I decided to head home.

Once I came upon my mansion, I was surprised to see Sasuke wasn't standing guard, and that most of the complex appeared to be on fire. I ran inside, desperate to see what had happened. Ten enemy ninja stood around in the complex, setting fire to everything. Hatred blossomed in my gut, and I struck out. I still cannot remember the entire story, but I do remember that everything was red. I have been told that Sasuke took care of most of the killers, and Naruto took me away from the scene. After all of it, Naruto held me and let me cry out my anguish. Eventually, I passed out, because I remember waking up in Naruto's bed, and the smell of cheap cup ramen floating through the house. I got up and thankfully found myself fully clothed, so I walked into the kitchen and sat down on a chair by the solitary table.

Naruto placed a cup of beef ramen in front of me, and I ate it slowly, and once I was done, all of the previous day hit me at once, and I broke down in tears once again. "I talked to Itachi last night," Naruto said, "And he said that we need to focus on training. I know that this is hard, but at least this way, they won't think less of you for leaving..."

It struck me that Itachi had told him to say those exact words, and as I read his face, that idea solidified. What a dork. I told him I thought he was a dork. He laughed awkwardly and then agreed, so I sighed and said, "The scroll says that I have to have some reason to go AWOL, I guess this will be it then, won't it, I would be fool to not at least use this to some advantage, besides, I already decided I would be dead to them, they just...beat me to it, I guess."

"That is pretty fucked up," Naruto responded, "I am serious! That is totally messed up!"

"Oh, and what are you going to use as your excuse?"

"Sasuke..."

"...How are we going to pull this off?"

"Hinata, you should know the answer to that by now, we are going to keep moving forward, no matter what happens, we just keep our eyes forward, the die is already cast, we must deal with the effects of our cast...there is no going back, I am not scared of this future! I am doing what I think is the right thing, and I will follow through, because, that is what Iruka would do."

I thought about it for a second, and what I came up with was that Naruto always did stuff like this, and he is going to be my man, so maybe that is the way that I should look at it. Yeah, that sounded right.

_**Back in the present...**_

It sounded easy then, now as I was running for my very life from people who were essentially, my comrades, I fully grasped my full situation. The worst part of it all was that, I still hadn't really received any training yet, so if they caught me, I would not exactly be fighting on equal terms. That simple thought alone caused me to speed up.

Four blurs formed around us, and then solidified, they were the Sasori's sleeper agents, Jirobo, Sakon, Tayuya, and Kidomaru. They were carrying two large wooden tubes with them. Naruto nodded to me and so I jumped into the nearest one. They stopped and formed a sealing jutsu, and I was thrust into darkness.

_**In Hinata's mindscape...**_

I opened my eyes and I was once again in a familiar place, my mindscape. Stone and mosaic-covered floors were suspended by clouds. Stairs ran up and down connecting different clouds, but I was standing on the main floor. Black smoke whooshed out from the tiles, and once it faded, The Morrigan once again stood in front of me. I kneeled in her presence. She began to walk around me and watch me, as if looking for something; once she had gone full circle she stopped again. She said, **"It has been a while, hasn't it? You have grown, I can tell. By jumping into those coffins, you jumped into my realm, where I hold absolute power. You have fulfilled your part of the deal, so I shall keep my end."**

I was shaking in fear of her, for she was still intimidating beyond reason the second time around. I guess if I had jumped in, Naruto had too, which gave her all she needed to "fix" the Nine-tails. She put her hand under my chin and made eye contact, and I felt something bloom that wasn't there before. **"I have given you a great gift this day, child. Now you cannot merely see chakra systems, now you can also force people to obey your commands," **she said, **"and, as you learn to use this ability, you will might even attain a level of dominance so that you could force tailed beasts to obey...i haven't given this kind of blessing since I met that man from the Senju clan...use it with care."**

With not another word, I awoke, and was ejected from the casket. I landed on my feet, as always, but I was greeted with the sight of Tayuya carrying Naruto's wooden tube. The others were all gone. "What happened?" I demanded.

As I did this, Tayuya picked up her burden and jumped off saying, "They got caught up in killing those kids following us, they should be back shortly, until then, we keep on heading to the rendezvous."

Soon we reached a grassy clearing, and we stopped. Naruto jumped out of the tube, and was slightly leaking out his red chakra. His eyes and whiskers had become pronounced. As this happened, Sasuke, Neji, and Shikamaru jumped out into the clearing after us. Sasuke looked to be oozing cold anger (as usual), Neji looked panicked, and Shikamaru looked...bored (also as usual). Naruto let forth another burst of red power and started to laugh maniacally at the sky. He looked at me without turning to look at Sasuke and the others and smiled and ran towards the Final Valley, claiming his final battle spot. Sasuke ran after him, without looking at me. I locked eyes with Neji and ran out towards the forest, he followed me.

Once we had reached a point where I could watch Naruto's fight, but not get caught up in it, I stopped and faced my cousin. He stopped in front of me and said, "It is my given duty by the Hokage to take you back to the village. I can't believe that you let Naruto corrupt you the way he did, I mean, I always knew that you liked him, but really, this? Become a nuke-nin for a school-girl crush?"

"I did this for me," I replied, "Naruto is just a bonus...we are no longer cousins. Now we are the most deadly of rivals and enemies."

There were no more words from me, for what words could have been? Would Neji or the village have forgiven me? No, that was not Neji's style and it certainly wasn't the villages' style. A change of heart on my part? No, never again, I would choose my own path from there on, maybe I already had. Anyway, it was go time. I dashed forward, looking like I would begin a gentle fist combo, and then switched rapidly to ninjutsu. I blew small compacted blasts of air at Neji, sending him flying backwards. He crashed backwards into the dirt, with a couple new bruises and a baseball sized lump that was already forming on his left arm. "What about Shino?" he shouted at me, "What about what you did to him, huh?"

I thought about what I had done to Shino, it wasn't so bad, not nearly as bad as what Naruto had done to Sakura.

_**In the early hours of that same day...**_

I had promised to meet Naruto out at the main gate in fifteen minutes, so I was hurrying. As I turned a corner, I found that Shino stood in my path. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" I demanded.

"This road is the only way out of the village," he responded, "so I have been keeping watch."

"I see, so..." I walked up to him and looked him at his eyes, "are you going to keep me from leaving?"

He looked straight ahead, to his credit, but I grabbed his sunglasses and looked him in the eye, which is all I needed. I enacted one of Itachi's bread and butter genjutsu and sent him into a deep sleep. I then sent out a pulse of chakra which killed all of his bugs and their eggs, which put him out of commission for at least a month.

_**Back in the present...**_

I threw thirteen kunai out into the air, and they all missed as planned, then pulled one into the perfect position to attack Neji's blind-spot, and by the time that Neji realized it, it was too late to dodge well enough, and my knife slid into his back. Neji then tried to rotate, but I stopped it, and then he tried another jutsu, but I stopped it. He went through his entire arsenal, and nothing worked against me. So I made the tiger sign with my hands and activated his curse seal. He fell to the ground, screaming, and writhing in pain. I stopped it long enough for him to gain his compsure, and I leaned down and whispered to his ear, "Remember our first Chunin exam, that is when I decided to do this, Cousin. I have hated you, and I have grown strong, now it is time for you suffer as I have, for only then will you understand me. Revenge is best served cold, and payback is a bitch. Now suffer."

I activated the curse seal again, until he lost consciousness, and then walked off to observe Naruto's fight. They were fighting on the bottom of the Valley. It was getting good, and I knew that it was about to come to a close. So I sat down and watched Naruto and I waited for him to finish up.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

I wrote the second chapter even though I said I wouldn't, what are you guys going to do? Sue me? I hope you enjoy this new and improved version please vote on the poll and review kindly.

_**IPOD384**_ ^_^


	3. Chapter 3

Naruto's perspective

It was finally the big night, the night I would leave for the Akatsuki. I had packed all of my valuables, set the traps for the ANBU, and was making my final checks off my to-do list, when something caught my eye, it was the picture of team seven. I picked it up and looked at each of us in turn, and then set it face-down on my desk. I exited my shitty apartment and started towards the main gate. It was quiet, too quiet, but that was the way that Tsunade had wanted it, nobody was to interfere with my defection. I made the final turn and the front gate was within sight. Sakura was standing there, and as she identified me, I stopped, I could feel Hinata watching, but I didn't say anything, instead I said, "What are you doing here? It is the middle of the night."

"This is the only road out of the village," she said, "so I have been keeping watch."

"Just go to bed."

I kept walking past her, and once I was past her she said, "What has been up with you lately? Why don't you tell us anything anymore? Why do you have to be so silent? Why can't you just...let us in?"

I realized that she was crying, but I had expected that since the moment I had seen her. "Like I said," I responded, "my business is none of yours, just leave me alone."

"You act like I am bugging you, but remember? That day when we first became Genin? The day when they announced our team...you were so excited to be with me, and maybe not with Sasuke, but..."

"No," I snapped, "I don't remember being excited for much back then."

"Well, that was a long time ago, and people and memories are always changing. But that was when it started, Sasuke and you, myself and Master Kakashi. The four of us, on so many missions. It was rough sometimes...and there is no way you could call it easy, but...when you get down to it...it was fun."

"Naruto!" she exclaimed, "I know the deal with the Nine-tails, and I have always known about how the villagers have treated you, but this...leaving like this...it won't make anybody happy, Naruto, they value you now, this won't make you happy, or me happy."

"That just proves it, doesn't it? I am not like you people, I am on a different path than the rest of you. Yeah, we all worked together for a while, sometimes I told myself that our paths went to the same place, maybe we were a team once. But I have forgotten my dream of Hokage, I don't need the recognition of the people who made my life a living hell. Maybe we were a team once, but, now I have decided to take the path that my father laid out for me. That is what I live for now. I can never be like you or Sasuke."

Those word stung all the way out of my throat, because they were for the most part, a lie. I still loved this village, I loved it so much that I had decided to give my dream of Hokage up for it. "b-b-but, if you leave, I'll be... I will be very l-l-lonely, Naruto, you have become a big part of my life, Naruto, I can't imagine life here without you."

"You!" I shouted, "make me so mad!"

I dashed up to her and blurred behind her. Brought out a kunai and slashed down her back, seriously marring her ribs and back, and then I knocked on her head with the flat of the knife, sending her to the ground. Hinata looked at me, and said, "And you said that I was messed up Naruto? She isn't going to be doing much with that injury for at least a year, and that is going to scar quite badly. Naruto, we weren't supposed to hurt anybody!"

I motioned for us to just leave, and Hinata dropped into step with me, and we left to begin the training that Itachi had promised us.

Five and a half months earlier...

I was in the middle of the forest, training with my wind chakra. I formed a sword of pure air into my hands and began to go through the forms Itachi had given me. When I finished six levels I stopped, and brought out my training scroll. I laid it on the ground and activated the seal. The resulting poof revealed a six-inch tall, transparent version of Itachi. He looked around at my training area and said, "I can see that you have mastered all that I instructed, so now begins the real purpose of this exercise. You are going to meet with Jiraiya and combine your wind chakra and your Rasengan to make your own signature jutsu."

"Yes, Master," I replied, "but I don't understand something. Why am I still hanging out in the village when I could be training with you in person?"

"Because there is going to be someone else with you when you leave."

"Right, I know, Hinata, you already told me that, but why can't you just fix her up and then we could leave tomorrow! It seems to make more sense to me that way!"

"Calm yourself, Naruto, this is a big part of what we are working on, be calm, and collected."

It took quite the effort to calm myself, but I was getting better. "Every moment here is getting more painful than the last, Master; I don't know how much longer I can last before I go crazy."

"I of all people know what you are going through is tough, but I have to take care of certain things over here before I will be ready to train you. So just do your best, it will make you stronger. And when you do leave, you will be made into the ninja that your father and yourself want you to be. So keep your cool, and work on this jutsu."

With that, he poofed away, leaving me to my struggle.

Back in the present...

That jackass Sasuke had caught up with me faster than I had thought. Itachi had told me that our bodyguards would have the devices needed release the nine-tails from Madara's curse. As I finished that thought, four people jumped out in front of us, two of them that the wooden tubes Itachi had described, so I nodded to Hinata and jumped in.

My mindscape was as wet and dark as ever. I walked into the room with the Nine-tails and was unsurprised to see that he was the same as ever, large, scary-as-hell, and roaring. As I sighed in exasperation, a black feather drifted into my vision. I snatched it from the air and tilted my head as I studied it. I felt myself fall backwards, and then there was only black.

When I awoke I sat up too quickly and was rewarded with a pounding head-ache. I was still in my mindscape, but the cage for the Nine-tails was open, so I began to look around the room rapidly searching for the massive beast, but the only other being in the room was a gorgeous red-haired woman with nine....tails? I won't lie, I nearly shit my pants. She walked up to me and said, "So this is the brat that guy saddled me with?"

I crab-walked backwards and bumped into a wall. She walked up to me and bent over to look at me in the eyes. "You have nothing to fear from me anymore kit," she said, "my dear friend the Morrigan woke me up real good, and I have decided I like you, I don't know why, but I do, so I didn't leave..."

I sat open mouthed, totally stupefied. She smiled and then said, "So, you are the silent type, or are you just staring at my boobs?"

I turned cherry red, and she laughed, a light, tingling thing. She continued, "Much as your little girlfriend is the Morrigan's priestess in this world, you shall be my priest, so I give you my blessing, and coincidentally, access to my great power. I am she who is known as the Goddess of Mischief, but I hate war, you shall keep this world at peace for me, for that is my will and my price for this bargain, do you agree?"

Peace was the entire point of my newest mission, so I nodded. She smiled, and with that smile I felt something tug from deep within me. It was not lust, it was not anything of that sort, but it was a kind of love, like, from what I understand, the love one has for one's mother, but far greater. I, in other words, knew that she owned me.

She kissed my fore-head and I felt power flow through me like never before. I looked up at her after and she closed my eyes with her fingers, and was thrust out of my mindscape.

I was launched out of my wooden tube. I landed, and felt red chakra flowing through me freely, but it didn't burn, it felt good. I felt power like never before, and it slowly retracted back into my center, doing it very slowly, as if showing how to access it. A little bit of it stayed out, and I knew that if I were to look in a mirror, my eyes would be blue, but with slitted pupils. I laughed in exhilaration, and let forth a pulse of chakra. Sasuke, Shikamaru and Neji were right behind me, I could feel their chakra, and I knew what would happen, I would fight Sasuke, Hinata would fight Neji, and that bodyguard would fight Shikamaru. I glanced over at Hinata and ran off to the Final Valley, to that little bit of space I would need to take out Sasuke.

I kept a healthy distance ahead of Sasuke as I ran, and eventually the valley came into view. The statues of the First Hokage and Madara Uchiha dominated the landscape, and I jumped across to the head of Madara. Then I slowed down to a walk. I was waiting for him to say something, and I didn't wait long, "YOU'RE RUNNING OFF?!"

I turned to face him and said, "what's up, bastard? So, another former member of Team Seven."

He just stared at my eyes, no doubt wondering what was with my eyes, so I continued, "like I already told Sakura, leave me alone."

He visibly twitched and then his cold anger started to seep out from him. I arched my eyebrow and said, "What is with that look? It doesn't make you any prettier, pretty boy."

"Why?" he asked, "Naruto...What is wrong with you? Who put you up to this facade? Is this some sort of sick joke? A prank? IT ISN'T FUNNY NARUTO! Just stop all of this and lets go home."

"This isn't a joke," I replied, "and what is wrong with me, isn't your business, so let me spell it out for you, the Uchiha genius, I have my own path, and I am done being the toy of the people who made my life hell, I am going to become stronger, and then, I am going to take revenge. I am not strong enough now, but with Itachi, I will be."

I turned around and began to walk away, and I saw his shadow fly up behind me, he tackled me to the ground, and then landed one good punch to my face. I spat the blood that filled my mouth onto his face and said, "I am going to follow the path set out for me by my father, you will not stop me, I am going to go to the Akatsuki. You cannot change that."

"The Akatsuki is a criminal organization, and they just want to have the nine-tailed fox inside you, Naruto! My brother nearly wiped out the entire Uchiha clan! You won't ever come back from them, Naruto, they might even kill you today!"

"That doesn't matter anymore. I don't care about me anymore, I will do everything I can to achieve my goal."

I steadied Sasuke and delivered what I meant to be a medium force punch to his gut. He caught air and flew about fifteen yards into the river before the waterfall. He even skipped twice. I stood up and looked at my fist. This was the power that Itachi was going to give me. That answered all the doubts that I had in my mind. Sasuke jumped up and charged at me once again, so dashed at him and swung around him abruptly. There was no way he could have blocked this kick. A healthy smack echoed through the valley as I nailed him in the temple. He fell down the length of the waterfall and into the lake below. As the water rippled slightly it changed my reflection from an image of me, to an image of my father.

Six and a half months ago...

It was me, Shizune, a paralyzed Granny Tsunade, and the Pervy Sage versus Orochimaru and his turncoat minion Kabuto. I had just used the Rasengan on Kabuto, and was in the midst of celebrating, when Orochimaru lunged at me, and stabbed me with a sword. I fell backwards, and into my mindscape.

"How can I beat this guy?! He is one of the legendary Prodigal Three. The Rasengan won't do a thing against somebody like him simply because I can't hit him with it. I am waaaay out of my league. What the hell am I supposed to do? Somebody tell me!"

The fox replied, "just tweak the seal a little, and let me out! I will kill whoever you want me to, Naruto...you know you could with my power, just let me out!"

I was going to die anyway...it seemed like a good idea, and plus, I was tired of trying to drown out his voice. So I did it. I let six tails out. I was about to let them all out when somebody stopped me. It was the Fourth Hokage. He pulled me away from the fox and threw me out of reach. "The seal is set so that I would appear here if eight tails ever came out," he said, "I never wanted to see you again, Nine Tails, but, I did want to see my son grown up. So I guess we should call it even."

"Come here you whelp! I will rip you to shreds, Yondiame!" bellowed the fox.

"That isn't going to make me come any closer," replied the Fourth, "just the opposite, in fact, right, Naruto?"

"Naruto?" I replied dumbly, "that is my name...How...?"

"Huh? Because I gave you that name...you are my heir, after all."

"Heir? Then...you mean..."

The Fox roared in rage. The Fourth smiled at me and said, "Yeah, just what I said, You're my son!"

Joy the likes of which I had never felt bubbled up within me, and I felt tears begin to form in my eyes. I finally knew who my dad was! He continued, "My, the fox is as noisy as ever I see, we should go somewhere else."

He snapped his fingers and the scene around us faded into white, it was just me and him. I was trying to wipe the tears out of my eyes so he wouldn't see, but I know that he saw. "I guess the third didn't tell you anything, if people knew that you were my son, there would have been trouble...I am sorry Naruto."

The happiness that had filled me left as quickly as it had come, and it left behind anger the likes of which I had never felt. I channeled it all into one fist and punched him right in the gut. "Why the hell would you seal the fox inside YOUR OWN SON!? D'you have any idea how much trouble it has caused me?!"

"Naruto," he asked, "how old are you now?"

"Thirteen."

"It must have been hard, I have no right to talk to you like I am your father, I am sorry, Naruto."

"Are you kidding me? I am the son of the Fourth Lord of Konoha," I responded, "I can deal with it."

"The reason that I sealed half the chakra inside you is because, one, you are my son, and I know you will use it the right way, and two, because when I was fighting the fox that night twelve years ago, I realized something, someone was controlling the fox. Have you heard of the Akatsuki?"

I nodded and said, "they are the ones who are after the fox. They have been hunting me."

"They are an organization that was founded by the five kages to keep the peace. They usually work behind the scenes, but in the recent years, they have let three wars break out, and they have become declared criminals, I don't know how that transition happened, but I think that it has something to do with the man who attacked the village. He is going to use the Akatsuki to take over the world. His name is Madara Uchiha, and he is much bigger than Orochimaru here, he must be stopped. I know a boy named Itachi, it was planned that he would gain entry into the organization, has that happened?"

I thought about the man who had murdered his clan and then messed up Sasuke, and I nodded. The Fourth must have seen something in my eyes and said, "Whatever you think you know about him is probably not true, I know for a fact that he would die for Konoha. I have maintained contact with him through his special guardian, but that is another story. I have a mission for you, my son. Are you ready to hear it?"

I nodded in excitement, and he smiled and continued, "You will train under Itachi, and then you will infiltrate the organization Akatsuki, and either fix it or destroy it? Do you understand?"

I thought about it and nodded, this was a request from my father, how could I refuse? He smiled and then said, "Then in conclusion, today, I will give you a gift, and Itachi will put us in contact again when you are finished with your training, and I will teach you my signature jutsu. My chakra is fading, so here is the first gift..."

He touched the top of my head and it felt like my insides suddenly energized. He said, "I will give you my will of fire today, my son. I will also tighten your seal for good measure and then, I have to go..."

He quickly and efficiently tightened the seal and then faded into nothing.

I opened my eyes. A devastated landscape met my eyes. Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade all blinked in surprise to see me and not the fox, so I took that opportunity to get the hell out of the way. Orochimaru attempted to attack me, but Jiraiya and Tsunade stopped him. I got over to Shizune and asked, "What do we do?"

"She looked at me in confusion, and then responded, "We should stay out of the way, Naruto, but how did you stop the fox?"

"That isn't important, what is important is that I have learned that I am the son of the Fourth Hokage, I will do whatever I have to do to protect the village. So what I am asking you is what we should do to best survive this encounter."

Three large poofs of smoke came from the Prodigal three, and their main summons emerged. I watched what I thought was the greatest struggle of all time on that day, I was sadly wrong. After it was all said and done, I limped over to Jiraiya and said, "I met my dad in my mindscape, he told me to train under Itachi, where can I find him, Pervy Sage? I need to know."

First both he and Tsunade wanted to hear my version of events, then they thought for a while, and they told me what was going to happen to me over the next couple of months, and that decided that, and my future became set. That all brought me back to where I was...

back in the present...

Sasuke rose out of the water below me and stood up. "So, after all of the stuff we have gone through together...I am worthless to you?" he asked.

"No," I responded, "You are my best friend, Sasuke, that is why I have to leave. I don't expect you to understand."

"Is it worth it, Naruto? IS IT WORTH IT TO LEAVE EVERYTHING BEHIND?"

Was it? The question startled me. Were all of the lies worth it? I didn't want to think about it, so I pushed it from my mind, and formed a Rasengan. Sasuke formed a Chidori, and we charged at each other and our jutsu collided. We both flew backwards, I managed to stay above the water, but Sasuke didn't. When he got up, I had a kunai charged with wind element chakra. I made a stab for his heart, but he moved to the side just in time. Blood spattered me and the water around us, my kunai had severed several tendons in his shoulder, and I knew the bone was sliced in places. Sasuke was looking me in the eye however. I noticed that his Sharingan had three tomoe now. He released his cursed seal, and his wounds healed. He shoved me back, and I caught air.

While I was pondering the possibility in such a dramatic increase in strength, he unleashed some major combos of taijutsu on me. Rock broke behind me when I slammed into it. I winced and then quickly went through all the punches thrown in the match so far, and I realized that his attack patterns were quite elementary, once you got down to it. I looked up at him and realized a moment too late that he had unleashed the full potential of his curse seal. He had two humongous hand-like wings spread out behind him, and was charging right at me. I dodged his punch, but not his wing, and got pummeled once again. Once I had regained my balance, I pulled out the red chakra. He dashed at me, but I repelled him with a roar and a pulse of chakra.

I felt the chakra increase in density and then surround me. I somehow knew that I had formed one tail behind me. I was protected. We both dashed at each other and landed a punch, and thus repelled each other quite efficiently. We both destroyed the feet of the two statues in the valley. I stood up and bellowed, causing the dust to settle. Sasuke was already up and forming a Chidori. I rapidly formed a Rasengan. Sasuke shouted, "Cursed Power: Chidori Lament!"

I bellowed, "Sealed Power: Vermillion Rasengan!"

The two super-powered jutsu canceled each other, but I landed a good punch to his gut, he scratched my headband. We fell to the ground. His cursed power had retracted, and so I retracted my red chakra. Sasuke had at some point lost consciousness, and I stood over him. I fell to my knees in pain. His first question still haunted me, was all this worth it? "I knew when I was confronted by this problem, I would be causing a rift to form between us, but if I didn't do it, and do it right, I knew people would die. It had to be done. Because if not me, then who? So I sucked it up... I did what Iruka did, what you would have done, I committed," I said, "to do what needed to be done, to win this fight fast, I knew that we would probably never speak again, never be friends again, or partners again.

"I told myself that I was okay with that because I knew I was right, I knew I was saving lives. And even though I said... I said I was willing to go all the way with this, I wasn't. And – and I know this because the worst has happened. The one thing I can't live with has happened, for all of our back and forth. For all things we have said and done to each other. For all the hard questions I have had to ask, for all the terrible lies I have had to tell...there is one thing that I will never be able to tell anyone now... not my friends, not my coworkers, not my boss. The one thing that I should have told you. But-but now I can't.... Sasuke, it wasn't worth it."

I stood up and Hinata was standing next to me, she had heard everything, and I was okay with that. I started to cry, and she held me up. "Naruto," she whispered, "I will be right here next to you the entire way, don't worry about it, we can do this, all we have to do, is keep walking forward."

I nodded numbly. Hinata began to lead us away from that place, I couldn't walk very well at that point, so she just helped me along. That was when we noticed Kakashi. He looked at us, or me, and then blurred right in front of us. He looked mad, I guess he had every right to be. I had betrayed him. Then Itachi blurred between us, and said, "One of my associates is waiting for you up top, you two, he will show you the rest of the way. I will take care of this fool."

Hinata draped one of my arms over her shoulder, and jumped up, so that we were at the top area of the waterfall again. A man who looked like he had two different sides to him physically waited for us, he had the Akatsuki robes on and he seemed to be growing out of a Venus Fly Trap. He turned on his heel and started walking, and we limped after him. I promised myself there that I would accomplish my mission, no matter the cost, I had now sacrificed too much to turn back.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

sorry it took so long, I am in playoffs right now, and am really busy, plus college apps, and well, I am super busy, these three chapters are how I am going to be doing Chasing Naruto over again, and now, the real changes in the story will emerge. I will try to update soon.

IPOD384


	4. Chapter 4

Re: Chasing Naruto Chapter 4

**Hinata's perspective**

It had been three and a half years since that battle at the Final Valley, and since then, Naruto and I had really come into our own. We were both in the waterfall room of the Akatsuki base in the land of Demons. We had just saved the land from the reign of terror of the demon Moryo, all in the hard days work of an Akatsuki apprentice. That is right, we still weren't full fledged Akatsuki. Everybody in the organization knew we were close to getting "an upgrade", which set them on edge. What most of them didn't know is that we had been trading promises for ninjutsu, so only two of the members were being targeted. Orochimaru, who had gone insane and left the organization many years ago, and Deidara, whom Naruto had a deep and personal hatred for. Naruto detested his "art" which gave him migraines. As I pondered all of this, I let my body float around in the cool water below our waterfall. The water was cool enough to be soothing, but not cool enough to catch a cold. Naruto was sitting directly under the waterfall, concentrating on holding his sage mode for longer durations. He had picked up that jutsu from the toads, and had kept it secret to everybody but myself and our master, Itachi.

Itachi had this very odd ability to come up at just the right moments. He rapped on the door to let us know that he was coming in. We were both decent, so we made no move to do anything, and he walked in. "We have our next set of stuff to do...Naruto, you and Kisame will be traveling to your mistress' temple for your meeting with your father, and Hinata, you and I have a little investigative mission to take care of, we leave in an hour, be ready to leave in half an hour." Our master dictated.

Naruto let his sage chakra dissipate, and then jumped out from beneath the waterfall. His blond hair was the same length as always, his birthmarks were also unchanged, but he wore the traditional Akatsuki under-robe gear. He quickly dried off, and walked to a pile of various personal effects in a corner. They were his armor, or rather, Itachi's old ANBU gear. He snapped the arm-plates and shin guards on. Buckled the vest and shoulder pads and inserted the sword into its holster. The final touch was a Fox-mask, thus completing his hunter-nin disguise. He waved goodbye and then left to go seek out Kisame. Itachi motioned for me to follow him, so I did.

He showed me into the map room, and I sat down on a stool. A Three Dimensional map of the Elemental Nations was glued down on a large table. Scattered on the map were different pins, which represented points of interest. The Eight Red ones represented Tailed Beast Hosts, or Jinchuriki. Two in the Land of Lightning, two in the land of Earth, one in the Land of Water, one in the land of Waterfalls, one in the Land of Wind, and the final one was circling the countries, in a wandering pattern, he had been last seen in the land of Eddies. Itachi picked up a new red one and stuck it in the Fire country. We both knew that Naruto had control of his "beast", and that he was currently in the nearby area, so I gazed at my master patiently, waiting for him to spill the beans. He was frowning and looking at the new mark. "The monks of the Fire Temple," he said, "somehow got their hands on a bit of the Fox's chakra, and then made it grow, as of right now, it is growing, in about a year, it will be a fully fledged Nine Tails fox spirit, which we want to avoid. I have to try help with the attack on the Sand village, so you will have to do this on your own, can you handle it?"

I nodded, so he handed me a scroll with the details on this host, and the likely outcome of a fight between us if he were to undo the very fragile seal on him. The trick would be to not even let it come to a fight, and to take him alive. I was out of the hideout in half an hour, and headed towards the Land of Fire.

The trip itself was uneventful, and I wasn't scared of being near home, or meeting somebody from home, but I didn't want to cause a ruckus that would bring even more attention to the Akatsuki, so I had to be as discreet as possible. After two days of traveling, I finally reached the temple. I pretended to be a pilgrim looking for a couple days of rest before continuing a long journey. As I stayed in the temple, I quickly identified the Jinchuriki, his name was Sora, and the seal was on his arm, just as stated. I also quickly found out that his father was considered a hero around the temple, and he always kept the grave of his father without dirt or wear of any kind. That would be all the opening I needed.

I found the grave easily, and desecrated it. I left a note, telling him where he would find me. He sought me out, and in a rage, so when he made a move to attack me with a ninjutsu, I put him under a genjutsu, and thus out of commission. I picked up his body, and left the site for the nearest base, where he was put in a sealed container, to be used at the appropriate time. After that, I was left with nothing to do, but to wait for further orders from Itachi, so I decided to go out and buy myself a treat, some red bean paste. As I savored my favorite food, I noticed that seven paper cranes flew toward the nearest hideout, which meant that it was a meeting time. I paid the fee for the paste and left the store. As soon as I was far enough away to not be disturbed, I was sucked into the Astral Projection Jutsu.

A shadow clone Naruto was busy drawing the Shukaku out from Gaara. It would be a painless procedure, and Gaara would live, if only because he was Kazekage and a friend of Naruto. The Leader was deep in conversation with Itachi. "But we need someone to take care of those fools chasing Deidara, Sasori and Naruto down, I think that you and Kisame would be good for this job."

"I disagree, Kisame is busy defending the real Naruto during his training, he should not be disturbed, send me and Hinata. It will be a good test to see how far she has come. She could handle ninja of those caliber with no problems."

The Leader sighed and then gave in, "Fine, I assume that she already knows how to do this jutsu?"

Itachi nodded and then winked at me. I rushed through the seals, and invaded the mind of one of Sasori's spies, sending him some of my chakra, and his body changed into my own. I opened my new eyes and looked around, I was underground, and hiding my chakra. Four chakra signatures were walking past me, and they all seemed familiar. I activated my Byakugan, it was Neji, Gai, Lee and Tenten. They were running to the location of the hideout, so I planned out my attack and acted. I sent a pulse of chakra directly at the four of them. They got out of the way (as planned) and the pulse destroyed a small hill behind them, as I dust poofed up I popped out of the ground. The dust quickly settled, and I looked down at them. "Just who the hell are you?" Neji shouted at me.

I was startled to say the least, then I remembered that I had my straw hat on, so I discarded it and flipped my hair out from underneath my robes. They recognized me instantly. Neji gazed at me, as if dumbstruck and I laughed at him. Gai looked around and then asked, "Do you guys know her?"

"Water Style: Explosive Water Shock Wave!" I shouted, and I shot out water from my mouth until I had created a miniature lake. Then I gathered some wind chakra and began to create waves. Veritable Tidal waves plagued team Gai. I went under the water and let the waves stop just as fast as they had begun, and just as Gai had recovered from the chaos, I had trapped Lee, Neji and Tenten in water prisons. He ran at me with some sort of taijutsu attack planned, but I made eye contact, and that was all I would need. This was the same move that Itachi had used on Kakashi after our fights at the Final Valley, Guy hit me, and I turned into several crows, and the Water prisons floated into the air. As Tenten, Lee and Neji all thrashed to survive, Gai jumped at them, only for them to dodge out of the way. He unsealed some of his gates, and I let him get to the prisons, only for them to also split into crows. This only angered Gai more, and but then he calmed down (ish) and stopped the flow of his chakra, and thus destroyed the illusion. He proceeded to use his blinding speed to save his students from destruction by the slightest margin. I formed a water clone and looked at them each in turn. I knew that with only thirty percent of my usual chakra at my disposal, I wouldn't be able to win, I would be able to cripple, but not kill.

Itachi had told me that when fighting against ninja like Gai and Lee, to not use Taijutsu, and Genjutsu would only go so far, and ninjutsu was too slow. The only way to win was to outlast. So I started a conversation, "um...ano, it has been a long time, hasn't it, N-N-Neji ni-san?"

"I would have thought that they would have killed you as soon as they took the fox out of Naruto... why are you still alive, Hinata?"

I felt a tick mark form on my forehead, and apparently it showed, because Lee and Tenten were taken aback. I dropped the stuttering act, "Naruto is busy taking the One-tail out of Gaara right now, and I can't let you interrupt that. Naruto and I are still alive and kicking, and we are way stronger than any of you Konoha Ninja. Just make it easier on everybody and go home, we will deliver the corpse when we are done...don't worry."

Even Neji was shocked. I smiled to myself and launched myself over to him and using the blinding speed Itachi had taught me, sealed all of his chakra points in fewer than two seconds. He flew backwards and into the water, where I knew he would drown. Tenten threw a small artillery of weapons at me and I effortlessly repelled all of them with a simple chakra rotation. Itachi had helped me refine that jutsu to the point where I could even direct the objects being repelled. I sent all the bombs right back at her and sent the sharp-n-pointies right over to Neji's body. The water turned red, and Gai went down under the water to try to save him. I used a Gaara-Kisame fusion jutsu and pressurized the water around Gai, and pinned him to the bottom of the mini-lake, and then began to slowly crush him. Tenten was still spraying weapons at me so I sped around her and forced her into a genjutsu. She quickly lost control of her body and also fell to the bottom of the lake.

That left only Rock Lee. He was staring at me in an odd mixture of fear and excitement. He was terrified of the thought of facing me, but also energized by the idea of beating me and saving everybody. I disillusioned him, "You are not going to beat me like that, you love to win, right?"

He nodded absently so I continued, "The difference between me and you is that you love to win and I hate to lose. That is what makes the difference between a winner and a loser, You want to win, but I will not accept defeat."

Itachi had spent most of our three years in training abroad, and during one of our travels, we had bumped into a woman who used a very unusual sword. She called it Valentine, and when one pressed a button on its hilt, the blade seemed to fall apart into a whip with shards of the blade equal-distant apart from each other across a maybe four foot long indestructible metal wire. Then, upon releasing the switch, the wire retracted into the hilt, and it became a regular sword again. This woman was drunk, and started a fight with me, and after a long and grueling match, I had killed her and taken her unusual sword for my own, and I had practiced with it until I perfectly understood how to use it. It was currently in its sheathe behind my back under my robes. I withdrew it and dashed behind my adversary.

Lee twirled around and brought out his nunchucks. I extended the blade to whip mode and snatched the weapons away with two flicks of my wrist. Then Lee brought out a staff and we entered battle once again. Lee was good, but in this, I knew that eventually, I would win, because my weapon was so unpredictable, that even Lee could not keep up with the rapid transformations it was undergoing. I finally beat the staff out of his hand and was going for the killing blow, when something pierced me from behind. It was a sword made out of lightning, Sasuke's new jutsu I had heard so much about, no doubt. This host body was going to die, no doubt about that, but not for another five minutes, so I decided to play along.

He withdrew the blade and took me to the beach. He laid me down and demanded, "Is Naruto still alive? Where the hell is he?"

I laughed at him. I let my head roll to the right, I saw that Sakura and some old lady were treating the wounds of team Gai. "So," I asked, "How was Itachi? I haven't seen him in a few days..."

He glared down at me and said, "It wasn't really him, and I can safely assume that this isn't the real you. But it thought it was worth a shot anyway."

I stuck out my tongue and let the jutsu dissipate. The ritual with Gaara was nearly finished, and he was going to live, beyond a doubt. Naruto smiled at me and then focused back to his work, or rather, his shadow clone smiled at me and then he went back to work. The last bits of the Shukaku drained out of Gaara and his eyes closed and then reopened. Naruto kept him from sitting up too quickly and then lifted him up and brought him to the back chamber. He gave him water, and a plate of bread with some of our best ration cheese. He then locked the ornate door and handed Deidara the key.

Deidara smiled and said, "That just like you, my man Naruto, got a plan for everything."

Naruto walked over to me and opened the back door, and we left Deidara and Sasori to deal with the Konoha Ninja. As we walked away, we hid our chakra and and I put on my full cloak. "So, I have a plan to get out rings...wanna know how I think we can do it?"

I laughed and then nodded so he continued, "You take Orochimaru and I can kill Deidara."

I knew that Orochimaru would be no easy kill, but neither would Deidara, so as I considered the different options we kept walking. I would have to track him down, and then kill him, which many had failed to do. Naruto could kill Deidara after the Konoha ninja had been sent into retreat, or he could just openly assault Deidara when he was healed afterwords. Soon we were standing in front of the Kyuubi's shrine. Naruto had built it over the years, and it was sturdy, and usually filled with the offerings of those who were superstitious after word of its creation had gotten around. That meant fresh food. Some delicious looking fish caught my eye, so I picked them up and began to munch on them. Naruto had hired a nearby family to watch over the shrine, and they were usually scandalized when I did something like this, but, I had met the Kyuubi, and I knew that she hated fish. God help you if you touched any chicken, but fish, pshaw. She could care less. Naruto walked out of the main building and saw me, and dashed straight for me. He nearly brought me to the ground in his excitement, but before I could protest, he brought me close and kissed me deeply. Fireworks shot off in my head, and I turned cherry red. Once he had broken the kiss I tried my best to glare at him, but all that did was make him laugh at me.

After two more such kisses, I mentioned that we should probably be watching the battle, to make sure that Sasori and Deidara went down. He nodded and we were within the hour back at the battle site. It was Sasori v.s. Sakura and that old lady I had seen earlier. They had nearly destroyed the entire hideout, all that remained was the back room where Gaara sat recovering. The battle was for all accounts, over. Sasori was telling Sakura and this old lady about his final thoughts on whatever, probably life, and they listened intently. We would have claimed his ring if it were not for the fact that another had "dibs" on it, if you would. I activated my Byakugan and searched the nearby area for Deidara. He was fighting Sasuke and Kakashi. The battle was about to end, and not in the favorable way for Akatuski. I told Naruto as much, so he blurred over to the battle.

He concealed his identity completely, grabbed Deidara and ran. He was gone before Sasuke and Kakashi had a chance to react. They were miles away from me, but I still watched them. I read both their lips to watch the conversation. The general gist was that Naruto wanted Deidara's ring, which Deidara refused, so Naruto killed him. Even Deidara could not have possibly handled six tails. Naruto pocketed the ring and blurred back next to me.

"I already know where Orochimaru is going to be in about a month, lets get him then, until then, we can hide away from the world, and maybe, pretend like we don't have to worry about it."

"That sounds nice, Naruto."

I grabbed his hand and we took our sweet time getting back to base. Naruto went to meditate and I left to go and take a well deserved nap. After what could not have been even five minutes of sleep, Naruto walked into my room with a tray loaded with tea and different traditional snacks. I was intrigued, to say the least. "Um," he started, "I need you to do _you-know-what_ again."

I nodded, it was about that time of month. Due to Naruto's extreme amounts of chakra, he could get a little "built up" around once a month. It caused his not pain, but he would get weighed down by it. "Assume the position," I commanded.

He sat down on the middle of my floor and closed his eyes. I faced him and rapidly formed the seals required. I whispered, "Ninja Art: Chakra Extraction."

I formed a needle on my right index finger and reached into Naruto's chakra pool. I slowly extracted the excess red chakra and transferred it to my left hand. It formed and orb of about seven inches in diameter. Naruto knew that he was back to normal amounts, so he stood up and grabbed a vial from my desk. As he busied himself with that, I compressed the chakra so than an inch in diameter. Red liquid chakra poured into the vial with careful precision that only came with hard practice.

Including this vial we had twenty eight total. This little thing could be ingested in the heat of battle for sudden bursts of power that were at least ten times as effective as soldier pills. Itachi had first tested it, and then Kisame, and we discovered that the vials increased chakra relative to the original user's chakra. Soon we would distribute them to the other members, but for now, we kept them secret.

The thought of red chakra brought my thoughts back to that kid Sora. I told Naruto about him, and Naruto was greatly displeased at the thought of another Kyuubi. We decided to take care of him quickly. I opened the container I had kept him in, and Naruto picked him up and set him down on a work table. He studied the seal on the boys arm for about two minutes and then decided he would need to extract this mini-version. He muttered something to the effect of "She is gonna be so P.."

Naruto slid through some quick hand-signs and his eyes turned purple, and his pupils became slits. The Kyuubi's voice used Naruto's mouth, "**What do you need from me now, kit?**"

Naruto's eyes went back to normal and he said, "Look deep into the chakra reserves of this guy."

His eyes went to purple and he hissed, "**Who did this, and when?**"

"The monks at the fire temple, my lady."

"**You know what I require of you, kit, but I want to know what you have in mind.**"

"What we did to the Akitasha clan?"

"**More omph...**"

"I have never done anything with more omph than that, my lady."

"**Don't you remember what I told you I did to the warlord Shingen Takeda?**"

"...you want me to do _that?_"

"**Yes.**"

Naruto visibly shivered and nodded. I couldn't help but to ask, "What did she do to Shingen Takeda?"

"You don't want to know," he responded.

He made me promise to stay in the base while he was gone. Something about how I wouldn't be prepared for the madness to come. I nodded meekly, if a prank scared Naruto, it probably wasn't wise to watch it unfold. When Naruto had left, I made my way to the waterfall room, stripped and meditated under the waterfall. This specific fall had been made by Naruto in his training, for the express purpose of chakra restoration and relaxation. Naruto poured some of his own chakra into this everyday so that if one meditated under it, one would fill up on pure, blue chakra.

As I filled myself up with soothing chakra I switched from the cool waterfall to the nearby hot spring. As I put my body through the soothing but sharp changes, I felt my muscles relax and when I had had enough I put on a black robe and walked over to the masseuse table. On it were two bracelets that were made of brass and jade. I threw them into the nearby water, and observed the transformation. The bracelets sunk to the bottom and then stirred. They floated to the top of the water, and a body of water rose from the surface of the lake and took the form of a lithe woman. Her skin was blue and translucent, she wore a simple shift and leggings, and her eyes glowed green like the jade of her bracelets. Her name was Churn, and she was an old elemental spirit, a fury. She was a subordinate of the Morrigan and thus, obeyed me explicitly.

In ancient times, when the Morrigan and the Kyuubi walked the earth freely, a man stole the magic of the spirits, and gave some of the elements life. Before he could finish his spell, the Morrigan and the other spirits stopped him, but the elements still had life. So what they did was they redid the original spell, with a twist, the elements would obey the spirits, rather than the man. They were from then on called Furies.

The Morrigan taught me how to bind a fury to a physical body, and Churn was the result of my first attempt. Water furies were almost no good at fighting, but they were the best healers around, and that was Churn's main function. She could stretch you out by just touching you, she could heal all but the most grievous of injuries in no time at all, and as it turned out, she could give one hell of a massage.

I had also bound Earth, Wind and Fire Furies, but as it turned out it was much harder to form a substantial lightning fury. Earth furies were super strong, and very fast, but turned to dust the minute they lost contact with the earth. They usually took the forms of mammals. Fire furies were excellent for attacking, but were rather like a bomb than a stream of fire, they just destroyed everything around them if not carefully monitored. They took the forms of birds, or powerful ones became dragons. Wind furies were no good at fighting, they could fly, and let you fly with them, but were usually destroyed by salt. They took the forms of animals that moved as fast as they did, whether that be birds, horses, and I had even seen one in the shape of a griffon. In order to bind a lightning fury, you had to get struck by lightning, which I did not want to do, so I didn't have one. But the Morrigan knew another way, and I knew it, so I was working on getting her to spill it, mainly through promises of feeding her children, the crows, but also I have let her channel herself through me, which gives her control of my body in the middle of battle, which she greatly enjoys, being the spirit of war. The only problem with the latter is that she leaves no prisoners, which can be troublesome in missions.

Churn worked her magic on me, showing no mercy and put me into a stupor. I almost didn't notice the crow that flew into the room. It had Byakugan eyes, which meant that my mistress wanted to speak. I mentally descended into my mindscape. She was waiting for me. "_**A war has broken out in the east that I have taken interest in. You will go there and monitor it for me it is a war between families, specifically mine,**_" she said, "_**i don't want to tell you how it started, but here is the general idea, my two sisters have decided that because I am not constantly watching them anymore, that they can resume their bickering, and they have decided for a chess match of sorts, but using real people as pieces. You will confront my sisters, and make them see reason, we do not use humans to settle petty squabbles.**_"

I nodded meekly and then rose to consciousness. Churn was done with me and had sunk back into the water, leaving her bracelets on the table next to me. I donned some new clothes and left the hideout without another word. When the Morrigan had said east, it turned out she had meant far to the east, three days ninja run to the east. I knew that I had gotten to where I needed to be because there was a monumental battle occurring. I activated my Byakugan and noticed there were only two crows in the entire battlefield. This was strange because crows usually flock to battlefields as a rule, because they feast on the remains. So those two must have been the sisters. They were fighting high above the main conflict.

I reached into a pouch at my side and pulled out a large bird talon. I felt for a breeze and I threw said talon into that breeze and my fury manifested. I called him Jet stream, and he took the form of a gigantic hawk. I jumped on his back and flew into the air. The two crows stopped fighting for a moment to stare at my fury, and I noticed that when they did that, the two armies below them crumpled into balls of exhaustion. They looked at me and made their beaks smile, and then simultaneously charged at me. Jet stream was only barely faster. His great wings bashed them silly and then onto the ground. We flew down to catch up to them, and then once on the ground, I dismissed Jet stream. I put his talon away in my pouch, and brought out two gigantic emeralds. I dropped them onto the ground, and a wolf made of earth the size of a small horse formed up, with the emeralds as eyes. "Julius," I said, "pin these two mongrels down for me please?"

Julius bounded towards them and pinned them both down with a paw and then looked back at me. I nodded, so he looked back down at them and growled deep in his throat. With a poof the two crows took their real forms, which were similar to the Morrigan in every way but their eyes, which instead of black were yellow and green respectively. I walked up to Julius and scratched him behind the ears, which made him whine in delight, and then called my mistress. Her presence filled me and I let her take over.

She started to speak in a tongue that I did not understand, which told me that I was not allowed into this discussion. They argued for a very long time, so long, that Julius sat down because his feet hurt. I could tell because he was my fury, and there was a profound bond in that. When it was all said and done, my mistress told Julius to get off them, which he did, and the sisters slunk off like two whipped children. The Morrigan gave me control of my body again without another word, and then left my body without any new orders, so I went home.

On the second day of travel, I found myself in the middle of quite the thunderstorm. It got so bad that I had to stop and hide under the protection of some trees. As I prepared for the worst, a lone crow flitted over to me. It had Sharingan eyes, and we made eye contact, and then the knowledge of how to bind a lightning fury was impressed upon me. Then it left without another word. I didn't have to get struck by lightning, I just had to have what I planned to bind it to hit the bolt. So I sent Julius deep into the earth to find some rare gemstones or metals, because those worked best, and was rewarded with some silver and four sapphires. I called forth Jetstream to create a wind shield against the rain, and then I reached into my fury pouch and brought out a gold collar inlaid with garnet. Using that, I called forth my most powerful fury, Slag. He was what most people would call a dragon, but specifically, his form was similar to our own teenage body for a dragon, he said it was a "drake". His body was formed from molten lava, and his wings were made of white fire. He could fly, but to fly on him would be suicide. "I need a favor Slag," I requested, "could you please make a collar out of this stuff, I am going to bind another fury."

I tossed the silver and the gems into the air and he snatched them from the air with his powerful jaws. He chewed on it for a little, and then spat it out onto the ground. The only way that Slag could develop into a fully-fledged dragon was if I kept feeding him Garnet, so as reward, I tossed him a lump that I had found a while back while near a volcano and he gulped it down greedily. He showed me his intimidating teeth in a grin and then disappated, his collar falling down to the ground near the one he had just made. I patted Julius on the head, and then dismissed him, jumped onto Jet Stream and flew up into the air. Jet stream could do this thing where he quickened my reactions to the point of absurdity, so when lightning struck, the collar hit it just in time. A great flash of light filled the area and the collar was filled with said element, and then took shape, the shape of a Velociraptor. He looked at me and I flew down to meet him. "Your name is...Silverbolt. Okay?"

He nodded, and then dissapated, and I was greatly pleased with myself and my new fury. Naruto was going to be absolutely green with envy. Even after Itachi's craziness, he still loved to learn new jutsu, and the Kyuubi didn't want Naruto to use furies for whatever reason, and he was intensely jealous. After I had tamed Silverbolt, I discovered that he had been the one causing the storm, so it quickly faded into nothing, and my journey continued with all speed.

When I finally got home, Naruto was getting pounded by Churn and grunting and groaning as different points of his back were tweaked. "Wussy," I called him.

He waved my comment off and grunted in pleasure. "Check out my new friend," I taunted.

Silverbolt formed and made a gesture similar to cracking his neck and then shook some sensation off. Naruto looked up, analyzed what he saw, his jaw dropped, then he narrowed his eyes and breathed in as if to say something petulant and rude, but Churn saw this and quickly delivered a strong and yet decisive blow to his mid-back, which sent him back into his noisy stupor. A new, but familiar voice entered the conversation, "It is mean to tease like that, Hinata, you know how Naruto gets around new furies."

Itachi had been sitting under the waterfall, regaining chakra from some mission no doubt, observing in silence, which was his thing. I bowed in respect and then said, "I finally got the whole set."

His eyes were closed, but his smirk betrayed his amusement. I looked around the room for Kisame, and saw that he was on the bottom of our small lake grinning his usual madman grin. I waved and he waved back, I had a good relationship with shark-man, simply this one time during my training I learned under Kisame about the using of shinobi swords. I wouldn't take the Sharkskin from Kisame because it didn't like my chakra as much as it liked Kisame's, but as soon as I found another one of the swordsmen, I knew that I would have their sword.

Naruto's voice carried across the cave, "Do you know what day it is Hinata?"

"No," I responded, "but I have a feeling that you do."

"It is the twenty-eighth of December. Happy Birthday."

I gasped, it was my birthday. I had forgotten, wow....I was sixteen. Naruto was quite suddenly right behind me, so I turned around and was handed a flier of some festival in the land of waves. "I got a great dinner reservation at this tiny little place I know over there. It should be a lot of fun. We have to get ready to go soon, so I am gonna go get my gear all set up to go. You should too, hint hint."

He was gone in a flash of yellow that made me smile, his father's ninjutsu and sacred mission were just excuses for him to learn new tricks. Kisame gave me a very disconcerting hug, and then presented me with a ninjutsu scroll that he had no doubt stolen from the hidden mist village on his historic break out. Itachi came over to me and poked me in the head with his index and middle fingers and said, "I am sorry, it will have to be another time, Hinata, right now, you have to catch up with Naruto. He has spent a lot of time on this one."

I self consciously laughed and then sprinted away. Naruto was waiting for me at the door, in an all black duplicate of his normal orange jacket-pants set. He took my hand when I nodded to him and we teleported away. The restaurant initially looked very shabby, but I found out that the reason that Naruto had invited me was because they had the best red bean soup he had ever had, and there was a coffee shop across the streets with good cinnamon rolls. He was at the top of his game that day. The soup was amazing and the rolls blew my mind. Naruto invited me to a walk across "The Great Naruto Bridge", and told me the story of this bridge. It was classic Naruto. When we finally reached the grave of Zabuza we found that the sword was no longer there. I was slightly dissapointed, but I quickly got over it, because Naruto said that he had a treat for me, and so we crept over some trees and saw that some Mist Ninja were nearby, and one of them held Zabuza's sword, and another one had a different Shinobi Sword. It was the Hiramekarei. Which meant that Chojiro was the second ninja. I knew this because Kisame had given me a roster.

Naruto whispered to me, "If you want the Hiramekarei, then take it, but I am taking the Decapitating Carving Knife with me back to the grave site."

I nodded, and then summoned my furies. I stationed Julius underneath the camp, Silverbolt about five yards out of sight, and Slag was with me. I formed a blade from chakra pointing out from my fingers, dashed up and stabbed the bearer of Zabuza's blade in the back. He died quietly, but in plain sight which was normally taboo in a ninja fight, but then Silverbolt, pardon the pun, dashed in like lightning, and jumped him, digging his claws into Chojiro's back and electrocuting him. Chojiro managed to yank him off and draw his blade, and called, "Hiramekarei Unleashing!"

The bandages around the blade fell to the ground, and a chakra hammer formed around the blade, which he smashed down on Silverbolt. The result of that blow was one KO'ed Lightning Fury. Chojiro started to rapidly swing the hammer around his head so I backed off. I called Julius, who jumped out of the ground and onto my body, forming an earthen armor. I called up Julius' strength through that earth and stopped the blade with a fist. Chojiro bounced backwards onto his ass, and blinked up at me. I brought down my fist only to miss his crotch by inches. He quickly jumped up and swung the blade again but this time aimed at my head.

I spun around, my head ringing, and hit the dirt. The main reason that Naruto didn't interfere was because, well, if he did, the blade would recognize him as the successor of Chojiro, which I didn't want. So he stayed back and watched, no doubt laughing at the whooping that he knew Chojiro had coming, because that hit, had pissed me off, which meant that I got sucked into the dirt with Julius and then spewed out into the air, which signaled Slag to start what our team attack. "It is time," I shouted, "for The Onslaught!"

I landed on the ground and began a chakra rotation. Slag blew some of his fire onto this ball, and thus turned me into a spinning ball of flaming death. Slag proceeded to play kitten and ball of yarn with me all over the battlefield, and then concluded by adding more flame to the ball, and then jumping back. The reason he jumped back was because at that moment, I let the chakra shoot off of my rotation, which created a fireball approximately twenty yards in radius. All that was left in the entire clearing was Hiramekarei.

Naruto dropped out of thin air next to me and whispered, "What is that thing called again?"

"Hiramekarei," I responded, "otherwise known as, The Blade of Flickering Splendor."

Naruto nodded and said, "I did good, didn't I?"

"Yes, you are a good boy."

AUTHOR'S NOTES

stuff has been going on, so I am still here, but not as...attached. What do you think? Please Comment, it fuels the drive for writing!


	5. Chapter 5

Chasing Naruto chapter 5

AUTHOR'S NOTE: sorry for the delay, computer trouble… apparently the virus guys didn't actually fix my computer, they just downloaded me a trial internet protection service and didn't tell me it would run out.

**Sasuke's perspective**

My feet were in slight pain due to my running around at top speed on the hard stone floors of an Orochimaru hideout. Intel said that Naruto was nearby, which meant that he was alive after all, my brother hadn't killed him. But why? Why would they want Naruto? Everybody had said they wanted him just for the fox inside him, but to take that out of him should have killed him. I burst through another door. It was empty. "Dammit, where are you?" I shouted into the blackness ahead of me.

The walls were covered in a strange semi-circle of lines pattern, the flickering candlelight made their normally lavender coloring turn into an irritating orange. I sprinted down hallways, Sharingan activated, scanning for the slightest trace of chakra. "I have come so far!" I shouted.

Then I heard an explosion. It was in the opposite direction that I had been running. I turned around and kept running. Eventually I saw light ahead and ran into it, not thinking. Captain Yamato was shielding his eyes from the sun and scanning what was now the top line of a cylindrical crater. Sai dropped an ANBU mask with a fox design. It could have been his, for all I knew. Then I noticed that Sakura was staring up where Yamato was, her eyes large, she whispered, "…na-ru-to…"

I turned to look up and there he was. His forehead was bare, he had the same birthmarks, his eyes were a cold blue (a sharp contrast to the cerulean I remembered), he was wearing an ANBU uniform, sword and all, only without a mask, which I then realized Sai had in his hands. "This loser too eh? Been a long time…Sasuke," he said.

Anger filled me and I shouted, "Why didn't you kill me on that day? Naruto, You wanted nothing to do with Konoha, but you didn't kill one of your only connections? Why?!"

Naruto didn't even blink as he answered, "I was not mentally or emotionally prepared to kill my best friend, so I let you live. It was on a whim that I let you live, and it is now, on a whim, that I will finish what I started."

Then he blurred next to me. He whispered, "Come to think of it, wasn't it your dream to kill Itachi and restore the Uchiha? If you have time to chase after me, you should be training."

He reached behind his back, and drew his sword. He then flipped it so the blade was opposite his thumb on his fist and swung downwards, towards my back.

"How could I do any of those things," I asked, "if I can't save one friend?"

We made eye contact, and I invaded his mindscape. I wanted to know if he still had the fox inside of him. I was in the shadows of the hallway outside where I saw a gigantic cage. Naruto was looking around, he probably knew I was here somewhere. Then the cage opened. A drop-dead gorgeous woman walked out of it. She was tall, had pronounced cheek bones, red-hair, a crimson kimono and black sash combo, and to top it all off, she had fire-truck red, luscious lips. She said, "What do you need now, and who is our esteemed guest?"

Naruto turned to answer, but then she pointed at me in the shadows and said, "Yes, who is this boy with those cursed red eyes and chakra more foul than my own? A miniature Madara Uchiha, that one."

Naruto locked eyes with me, and I was thrown from his mindscape. But maybe I am getting ahead of myself. It all started on my return to Konoha. I had been taken away by the Sanin Jiraiya. We had spent three years on the road, and we were ready to go back home. The leaves were all a dark, lively green, and the breeze whispered in our ears. Quite suddenly, the gates of the village appeared in front of us. We checked in with the two guards, who plainly knew who we were and were bursting with excitement about whom to tell first. I sighed, as long as it wasn't the fangirls, I would be fine. "Something seems different, Master," I said.

"Yes, well, we've been gone a long time, things are bound to change without us being here to see it. Why don't you jump up there and take in the view, should help a bit with the obvious."

I nodded, I had a respect for the Sanin, he had taught me more than I thought possible, but I knew he knew even more. I ran up a telephone pole and took in the view. Tsunade had been added to the Hokage mt, the buildings of the village looked like they had never been touched by the Orochimaru invasion but other than that, everything was the same as always.

Then I thought about me, I had picked up a couple of the finer elements of my master's style. I had seals all over my body in discreet places for weapons for different occasions. I had the same shoes as him now, clogs, baggy pants and a very Jiraiya-esque robe. My robe had the Uchiha crest on the back, was similar in pattern to Jiraiya but where his was red and a green undershirt, mine had a black undershirt and a white robe. This was all under a belt so that I could just shrug off the sleeves if I needed to access my curse-mark. My old headband had become ratty so I had it replaced, it was now like a black sweatband with a metal Konoha plate. I didn't have to worry about tying it anymore.

I jumped down and nodded to Jiraiya, he was right…again. He was a self proclaimed "monster-perve", but he was a smart monster perve, if you asked me. I turned around towards the Hokage tower and bumped into somebody. Yep, crowded streets are awesome, aren't they? I studied this person, it was a female, she wore a ton of red, pink, and black, her headband was being worn in such a way to distract people's eyes away from her forehead, and she had bright pink hair. My fangirldar was blaring. Instincts kicked in, I wanted to hide and shiver, but I resisted. Instead of running away from the threat, I did not move, and tried to glare it away. No cigar. She turned around, not even trying to hide her unholy rage. It was most definitely Sakura. Then she realized it was me and her mouth dropped and she blushed furiously.

I wanted to go away, but then none other than Tsunade showed up. She was right behind Sakura and wanted to know what all the commotion was about, I know this because she had her "_what-the-fuck-just-happened?"_ face on. It was a femme-Hercules double threat. I put on a mask of pure indifference. Jiraiya sniggered. "ohmygawd!" screeched Sakura, "It has been too long, Sasuke! You have changed a lot! *Squeee* Have _**I**_ changed a lot?"

I grunted and decided to let her take it however she would. She smiled and attempted to glomp me, luckily I sidestepped with all the suave of a professional. She landed face first in the dirt, and I walked up to Lady Tsunade. I gave a crisp salute and said, "Sasuke Uchiha, reporting for duty after training trip with Lord Jiraiya."

She nodded, and I couldn't tell if she was pleased or indifferent. Then she said, "Look, the fact is, since team seven is currently missing one member, we want to reassess your newly learned skills, there will be a test for you two tonight at sunset on training ground three. I expect you to be punctual, you are taking on your sensei Kakashi."

I felt as though all of my energy and anything bright in the world was ripped from me. Naruto was dead and gone, because I couldn't save him, couldn't convince him. He had deserved better because he was a knucklehead, and a dunce, but he had turned the tide of many battles, and he had spared me. But why had he spared me? He had been leaving, he wanted nothing to do with us in the village anymore, so why didn't he kill me? My thoughts were interrupted by Jiraiya shaking me and shouting, "Snap out of it, Sasuke! You need to stay in the present! What is done is done, you cannot change the past!" Then to Tsunade, "You should know that Naruto's name is taboo around these guys!"

Then I noticed that Sakura had fallen backwards, and looked like she might become violently sick. I wrinkled my nose in disgust, but shook the feeling away. I waved to Jiraiya and left to go and clean my house, it had surely become dusty over the years away.

When it was almost sunset, I made my way to the training ground, in my full gear, with all my equipment on. I was ready for a party. Kakashi poofed to us and showed us two bells and said, "This time it is for real, two ninjas, two bells, no rules, fight to kill me."

I charged forward and then blurred behind him, but he blocked me and sent me flying. I landed painfully on the rocks in the river. I jumped up and formed a chidori blade and attempted to stab him. It turned out he was a shadow clone. I activated my sharingan and looked around. Nowhere on ground level, in the trees, in the sky, which only left, "Underground!"

Sakura punched downwards to the earth and revealed Kakashi. He used a new jutsu to counter us, "Water Style: Great Water Dragon!"

A blob of water rose above the pond and formed a dragonoid shape. It hit Sakura into the river with me. I hadn't wanted to resort to this, so I took out the new book, "Make Out: Tactics."

He grabbed the book, and looked down at the bells, he still had them. He looked up at me and began to thank me, but then I said, "The final plot twist to the story is that the main character is really…"

Kakashi closed his eyes, covered his ears and so we walked up to him and took the bells. It took him a moment to realize what had happened, and he seemed a little bit let down about something he equated to "an addiction I tell you…"

I humphed and Sakura giggled. Tsunade walked out of some shrubbery and was promptly followed by Jiraiya, Shizune, the village elders, and an old man whose face and right arm were covered in bandages and who walked with a cane. The Elders began to clap, they were smiling appreciatively, Shizune joined in after a little, and Tsunade said, "Excellent, you have most definitely improved, as expected from you guys… Be in my office at nine oclock sharp for your mission. Get a good nights sleep, all three of you."

I turned on my heel, gave Jiraiya a hi-five and went home and slept in my own bed for the first time in three years. I woke up at seven, I had always used to wake up then, but Jiraiya had had me up and about at five usually so I had really slept in. I had brushed my teeth, eaten breakfast, gotten dressed and was out the door by eight-thirty. I took a nice and relaxing walk to the tower, using my old shortcuts around known fan-girl houses and avoided the main streets that Sakura would use. It was a good day.

In the mission room, Kakashi and Sakura were already waiting for me, but I didn't say anything to them, I didn't really want to talk to Sakura and to talk to Kakashi was going to invite Sakura to talk to me, not worth it. Tsunade tossed a scroll to Kakashi who read it and then gave it to me, a D rank. I tossed the scroll to Tsunade and said, "No, I am not doing that mission. It is too easy, I need something more challenging, how else am I going to get stronger?"

"Do you know just to who you are speaking to?" she demanded, arching her eyebrow.

"I demand a better mission."

She was bereft of words and her vein started to pulse ominously. Sakura suddenly had me in a headlock and said to Tsunade, "He doesn't mean that, really, we'll do anything you ask us to do ma'am," then to me, "Listen, Sasuke, I don't think you understand who it is your messing with, she is scary when she is mad, ask anybody, but when she is really ticked, she is scary beyond words, obey her, and with a smile on your face or suffer the consequences."

I was shocked, she had finally stood up to me, and while it bugged me that she was, you know, touching me… The reality set in, this woman could wipe me off the face of the earth with her fury. Then a woman burst through the doors into the meeting and blurted out, "Lady Tsunade, the Akatsuki is on the move, they have apparently kidnapped the Kazekage, Gaara of the Desert!"

I could feel a vein of my own pulsing now. Akatsuki, the organization with Itachi, and whom had stolen Naruto. Rage was all I could see or feel. Someone was cursing the messenger for her shortsightedness. Kakashi shook me and I looked up at Tsunade said, "Look, I don't like this, okay? But you three are all that I have available right now, so get a move on, I will likely send back-up as soon as I can, got it?"

I nodded and walked out of the room and out of the tower. Kakashi and Sakura were right behind me. We reached the gates. Temari was on her way out. Sakura told her what had happened and she was obviously troubled, so she was invited along. I started to run…

…and I didn't stop running until we were at the Village hidden in the Sand, or more commonly known as Suna. Kankuro had attempted to follow Gaara's captors but he had been beaten soundly and then poisoned, so Sakura was put in charge of his recovery. Kakashi and I had to wait until that was sorted out, so I waited. Eventually a sand ninja introduced me to a woman known as Lady Chiyo, she was one of the best and would accompany us to save Gaara. Two full days of waiting and nothing big happened. We did receive a message from Tsunade at the end of the second day that said Team guy was on its way and on the morning of the third day, we were allowed to set out. Kankuro had stolen a bit of clothing from one of the attackers, so Kakashi called Pakkun out to lead us in the right direction. "Wait up," Temari called, "I am so sorry that we have you guys doing this now, but right now, there are things that need doing that only we can do. As soon as we can, expect the full force of Suna to come flying towards you as back-up."

Kakashi nodded and gave her a thumbs up. We set off and it was looking like it would be another mainly dull run, until I saw something in the distance. It looked like a man in black robes, he was leaning against a tree. He had red eyes. I jumped down and faced him, and surely enough, it was Itachi. The three light thuds from the rest of my team landing sounded off from behind me. Sakura looked a combination of angry and curious, Kakashi had his Sharingan out and Chiyo looked like she was about to croak (as usual), so I charged a chidori blade, blurred behind my brother and stuck the blade into him and made the tip split into six blades which went out of him in several different directions.

Blood flew everywhere and then his body turned rapidly into a flock of crows which began to fly around the clearing we were fighting in. I was caught in another of his genjutsu. The right side of my face began to burn. The skin seemed to peel off unnaturally. Then a voice I never thought I would hear again filled the clearing, "Well, if it isn't Sasuke?"

Naruto. But how? Then I remembered, it was a genjutsu. But as I began to fight it, my right hand flew up to my own throat and began to choke me. As i sputtered and attempted to breathe in, the clothes around my left elbow swirled out and Kakashi's face appeared. "Such a disappointment, I had such great hopes for you, and here you are, letting Itachi finish what he started. Pathetic."

Then my robe sprang open, and Sakura's head glared up at me, "I can't believe how weak you are, when push comes to shove, I mean, this is pathetic… it is just like when you lost to Naruto, huh?"

"I know this is a genjutsu, Naruto is dead, Kakashi might say things like that, but not to me, and Sakura is too much of a coward to really say that!" I shouted somehow.

Then all the crows in the sky flew together and formed Itachi. He smiled at me and said, "really, because I think that that is exactly what Sakura is thinking, and Kakashi has changed, you can't really hope to know him, and what is the most funny is, I have to say, that you think Naruto is dead…"

"You wouldn't let him live you monster!"

"Wrong, dear little brother. Wrong. I have trained him, even now, he sucks the tailed beast from the Kazekage. You have gotten stronger, but I wonder how much, I mean, you can't even break out of this genjutsu."

I knew that he was lying, I knew that from personal experience. But… I still wanted to believe it, and the only way to know the truth was to figure it out, so I molded my chakra and made it stop, canceling the genjutsu.

I opened my eyes and glared at him and said, "How dare you say that to me? Naruto is dead, I know this to be a fact, and Hinata too, don't disgrace their memories!"

Itachi smiled at me, like he knew something I didn't. Then Kakashi's radio sprung to life. "Is team Kakashi anywhere nearby? This is Rock Lee, we need back-up, now, we have engaged the enemy!"

Kakashi answered, "This is Kakashi? What is going on? Do you know who the enemy might be?"

"This is going to sound crazy, but…" Lee replied, "…but, it…it is Hinata!"

It felt like somebody had forced the air out of my lungs, if Hinata was alive, then Naruto could very well be alive. Kakashi looked up and said, "It is time to end this game, Itachi!"

Then he poofed, and not like poofed to another location, but more like released a shadow clone. Then Kakashi exploded from underneath the ground and put a chidori right to Itachi's stomach. Itachi flew into the air, where Kakashi seemed to be copying the moves of the Primary Lotus. Then, when Kakashi should have delivered a final kick downwards, he used another chidori to send Itachi to the dirt. As Itachi laid there, amidst the rubble, his face melted off, to reveal another. Chiyo took a step forward and then said, "Wait, that is Yuura! He is a jonin of the sand village, he has been on the council for over five years!"

That would mean that the Akatsuki could have spies in every village. I looked at Sakura who said, "We need to let Tsunade know in the report, this cannot go unnoticed, but right now, we need to save Gaara. So, spies have been revealed, noted, let's move on!"

I nodded and Kakashi said, "Lee, can you tell us where you are?"

"Yes!" Lee answered, "we are at the dead center of square A-10 in quadrant 3-D of the Land of Winds."

Kakashi looked to the east and said, "That is about half a mile away from us, we'll be there in ten minutes."

Kakashi jumped off into the nearby trees without another word. I was second, Sakura third and Chiyo brought up the rear. We were close to the end of the forest and once we were through that, we came upon a rocky area with random hills of solid sandstone. As we got closer to the target area, we realized that somehow Hinata had turned this area into a small lake. Soon we came upon the battle, and I activated my Sharingan. We hid behind some rocks and I looked around, Guy, Neji and Tenten were out of commission and under water, Lee was trying to fight off Hinata. Her weapon looked like it could switch between a whip and a sword, it must have had some sort of mechanism inside it to do that. "Hey, Sakura, old lady," I said, "Guy, Neji and Tenten are underwater and by the looks of it, drowning, shouldn't you help them out?"

They went under water and brought them to shore and I waited for the Hinata to turn her back to our hiding spot. I dashed forward and stabbed her with my chidori blade. Lee just about collapsed and I picked Hinata up and brought her to the nearest rock outcropping. I laid her down and demanded, "Is Naruto still alive? Where is he?"

She looked at me, right in the eyes and laughed. It had a cheerful ring that should not have been on a dying person, so I assumed it was just like Itachi not half an hour ago. She turned her head to face the area where Sakura and Chiyo were healing team Guy and asked, "So, how was Itachi? I haven't seen him in a few days…"

"It wasn't the real him, so I can assume this isn't the real you…but I thought it was worth a shot…"

Then she stuck out her tongue and the false face melted away. "Dammit!" I slammed my fist onto the nearby ground.

"Hm…" Kakashi had walked over, "If I had to guess, I would guess that if Hinata I still alive, then Naruto is still alive, and I have seen that jutsu before, the person using it has to be within about fifty miles, and Naruto and Hinata probably wouldn't be too far apart after training with the Akatsuki, they do after all, travel in twos. Let's get going, they could be long gone soon if we don't go now."

Sakura and Chiyo had patched up Team Guy pretty good, so we all went to the direction that Pakkun had us go again. After another bit of silent running we came upon a river which was in the middle of a man-made canyon specifically for the river. Kakashi glanced at the river and identified a Shinto gate which marked the gateway for a natural cave. The cave had a boulder blocking the entrance and the boulder was sealed there with what looked like a paper bomb. "That is a Five-seal barrier. One seal is right in front of us, and the others are hidden somewhere around us."

I turned to look at Neji right as Kakashi said, "Neji, if you would?"

"I see them," he said, "One is on a rock, 500 meters to the north east, another on a tree by a river…about 350 meters to the southeast, then there is a small cliff wall about 650 meters to the north west, and the last is in a wood, about 800 meters to the south west of here."

"Alright, they are all within radio distance, Neji will guide us straight to the talismans. My team is faster, we'll handle it, so hang tight until we touch base."

Guy and his team scattered. Not a minute later I heard Guy say, "on the count of three, one…two…three!"

Kakashi ripped the seal off the boulder and Sakura dashed forward and punched it. Kakashi signaled for us to enter the room. I dashed in and looked around the cave. I saw a flash of yellow and then, two men stood inside the cave. One was tall with blonde hair, and odd blue eyes, he had his hair covering one eye. The second was short, and his chakra seemed odd, like a ball in the center and then it seemed to spiderweb out from that to the rest of his body. Normally I just saw a blob of color for a person's chakra with my sharingan, but he was different. I shook the feeling off and saw the tall one tossing a key in his hand up and down. He said, "You, you're… Itachi's kid brother, aren't you?"

"Those red eyes…" said the other, "must be…"

"Where did you put Gaara?" I demanded and I let my curse mark progress to the first stage, "and where the hell is Naruto? Hey, are you deaf? Where is he?"

The tall one tossed a key up and down and said, "The Kazekage is behind this big door here, and he might be alive for now, but not for long I am afraid. And Itachi's apprentice…he isn't here, just missed him, I know where he went, but, like I would tell you."

Then the tall one made a few hand signs and a gigantic white bird appeared out of nowhere. He hopped onto said bird and flew out of the cave shouting back at his partner, "I will take care of the Uchiha and you take the leftovers, deal?"

I ran after him, it might have been a trap, but I wanted answers. He headed north, so I followed him. Kakashi was quite soon right next to me, he said, "Hey, Sasuke, this guy appears to fight at the long range, and I have a plan. I found out he uses explosions from the people who saw the fight with Gaara above the village, he uses bombs. I think I know how to beat him, so calm down. We'll get our answers."

He made a tiger-seal and covered his left eye. For maybe five minutes he poured chakra into that eye and then he lowered his hand and looked at me. It was the Mangekyo Sharingan. It looked different than Itachi's, that meant that it could be just a thing that changes from eye to eye, but it could also mean that different Uchiha got different types of eyes with possibly different powers. "How?" I asked him.

"That is a story for another time and place, but I only recently realized how to turn it on, how I obtained it is an old story… right now, let's see how this works."

"If I find an opening, I am taking it, so don't hit me with whatever your planning."

Kakashi nodded, and then looked up at our target. The air and sky around him seemed to wrap around him, and then twist and disappear. Deidara realized this and jolted to his right just in time that the main focus of Kakashi's new jutsu nailed his left arm at the elbow. His arm seemed to get a huge chunk abruptly taken out. His forearm and hand fell down onto solid ground. His bird veered to the right and out of the canyon. Kakashi shot again and this time missed entirely. That meant that this thing took some time to aim, which could not be done well while moving, but I saw my shot. I took my sword out and jumped high into the air and cut off a wing of the Akatsuki agent's bird. He crashed into a tree and hit every branch on the way down. He rolled over just in time to see me fly down and kick him farther into the dirt. He spat out blood upwards at me. I unsheathed my sword, put the tip at his throat and demanded, "Where is Naruto?!"

Then his face turned white and the rest of his body slowly afterwards. It was a substitution. I started to look around for any trace of chakra. I quickly realized that this guy was now talking to Kakashi. I ran around them and attacked from his behind with a normal chidori right through the heart. This was another clay substitution. I threw it down off me and looked around. He wasn't anywhere I could see. Then Guy called in on the radio, "Hey, we got this clown, he has some sort of key, we have taken from him, is it to anything important?"

"Where are you guys?" Kakashi asked.

"About 300 meters directly north of you, why?" Guy asked.

I was already going that direction when he had said 'why'. The Akatsuki was sitting on his ass, apparently restrained next to his gigantic bird. He saw us and smiled. He jumped up and bit down on his clay bird, chewed and swallowed. I had heard that he had used explosive clay, and he used a ton of earth signs while fighting, so I dashed up to him and shouted, "Lighting style: Chidori, One Thousand Birds!"

I shoved my hand right into his mouth to try to stop the explosion. I jumped back just in case and he continued to buldge up and explode anyway. But right before it should have rapidly expanded, it disappeared, leaving absolutely nothing. I turned around and there was Kakashi and his new sharingan. I could only stare in shock as he fell over backwards due to exhaustion. Guy picked him up and put an arm around his shoulder, "I'll take him back to Suna for now, you worry about getting the Kazekage."

I nodded, grabbed the key that Lee had in his hand and ran back to the Akatsuki hideout. There was a ton of rubble from the battle between Sakura, Chiyo and the other Akatsuki agent. Sakura was staring at a single puppet in what I realized were what looked like at least a hundred broken puppets. The locked door and room were still intact, so I ran over to it and shoved the key in the lock and twisted. The key snapped but the door opened. Gaara fell out of it, he had been propped up against the door.

I grabbed his wrist and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Chiyo limped over to where I was kneeling and saw Gaara and asked, "So, he's dead?"

"Yes, this mission has been a failure," I choked out.

Sakura darted over and checked his pulse, twitched and then formed green chakra around her fists and laid her hands flat on the dead man's chest. "What are you doing?" I asked, "He's dead, medical ninjutsu won't help him."

"Not dead…" she responded, "He is only mostly dead. He has been put into a death-like state."

Gaara's eyes jolted open. He sat up so fast that he hit Sakura's head with his chest and he shouted, "Naruto! You shouldn't do this!"

"You've seen Naruto?" I shouted.

He looked around him, identified me, looked at my headband and said, "need to calm down, breathing…"

He calmed himself down and then said, "Naruto was ordered to take the tailed beast out of me, he did it and I didn't die. We got to talk for a bit in his mindscape while he did it. He is not a fully-fledged member of the Akatsuki yet, he needs to get a ring from one of the current members. He said that is the only way he could save all the others… the other hosts."

"Is that why he joined the Akatsuki? To save the other jinchuriki?" Sakura asked.

"Could be," Gaara responded, "he said he could save all the prevent all the hosts from dying if he unsealed the beasts. He told me the only reason he was allowed to unseal me was because the leader wanted to see if the way Naruto unsealed the beasts was faster, what day is it?"

"The first Sunday after you were captured."

"Then the other hosts will die in the process of taking away their beasts. Didn't tell me anything else, besides that he was going to kill to get Orochimaru's ring. He told me that he had two Akatsuki spies that knew where Orochimaru was, one going to the bridge of heaven and earth in a month and the other would go to…to, I can't remember. He wanted me to tell somebody from Konoha, one of the sanin, I think, called him Pervy Sage, said he needed to talk to him… I am fading fast, I am going to sleep now…"

He closed his eyes and passed out. I looked at Sakura and she locked eyes with me, then she abruptly looked back to Chiyo. She did not look so good, like worse than usual. "Granny Chiyo, we need to get you to the village soon, you're gonna die if we don't go soon!"

But Granny Chiyo did not move, it looked like she was sleeping. Sakura lifted a hand with green chakra over to her and the chakra faded. Tears streaked down Sakura's face…that could only mean that Chiyo was dead. I reached over to close her unfocused eyes. She remained leaning there. I picked Gaara up and Sakura picked Chiyo up, we dashed out of the ruined hideout and towards the village. Eventually we ran into a host of Sand ninja. Temari was upon us as soon as we landed. Before she could speak I said, "He is alive, but barely, the Shukaku appears to be gone and he needs to rest, can you guys take him?"

She nodded and called over a stretcher. Gaara was laid down and taken away. The entire force was pretty broken up, but they were also happy that their lord was okay. I kept a bit behind of them all, to make sure that Team Guy made it over okay. They were fine, but Kakashi was still down and out. When we returned, the village had a celebration. I returned to my room as quickly as I could, but try as I might, I couldn't sleep. Naruto was alive and I knew where he was headed.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Sorry for the delay, its just that my computer has crashed twice since my last update and I had to take a break from writing the same thing over again for the second time. I was pretty pissed, but now, it is all okay, because it is finished. Again, I am so sorry for the delay. Thank you to Shingen Takeda for the amazing beta


	6. Chapter 6

Chasing Naruto chapter 6

Sasuke's perspective

I was standing in Tsunade's office, and since Kakashi was in the hospital again, Sakura and I had to give our report in. We had just finished, Shizune said, "This is obviously a trap. The Kazekage was a bit muddled, you said so yourself, we just don't know what they did to him, they could have turned him into a sleeper agent like those other guys."

"I don't think so," said a familiar voice from outside the window, "I have reason to believe that what the Kazekage has said is true. I think we should send someone to go and at least check it out."

"But their team is short two members, if anything, we send a different squad. If it really is Naruto, and he has been trained by Itachi, who knows how strong he is now? We should be sending in an ANBU squad!"

Jiraiya opened a window and hopped into the office. He waved at me and I nodded back. "Look," he countered, "for these two, this mission is not just a mission, it is personal, they have greater drive than an ANBU, plus, Sasuke hasn't been allowed to show off his real power yet, so I think we should send them. Naruto may have changed, but basic attack patterns that genin adopt are hard to change, these two know those patterns because they have worked with Naruto, they will be better able to predict his movements."

Shizune was defeated but she was puffed up and it looked like she didn't want to admit it. "Well, that settles it, I will get two fillers for just a bit while you go and recuperate and restock. Dismissed." Tsunade said.

I split off from Sakura as quickly as I could. I was going to meditate and take a nap. I took the back alley way. Shikamaru was leaning against a shop of some kind, waiting for something. I nodded to him and he nodded back. "So, what have you been up to?" I asked.

"It's a drag, but Tsunade had got me working the Chunin exams again. Choji was going to come by with some food, if you want some, you could stay for a bit."

"Yeah, it would be good to catch up."

We talked for a bit but something felt off, somebody was watching us. I glanced around with my Sharingan as subtly as I could. Some guy was sitting on a nearby roof, watching us. I looked up and then nodded my head in his direction, making sure to make it look like I was cracking my neck. Shikamaru caught it, and he narrowed his eyes and said, "Don't recognize him, leaf headband, so he should be on our side, I'll keep an eye on him."

Just then Choji walked up. "Oh, wow, is that you, Sasuke? Man I heard you went on one hell of a mission the other day, great job. Oh, did Shikamaru invite you to our lunch, great! I brought extra food."

Shikamaru pulled on his collar and then lifted his chin. Choji glanced in the direction of our little spy. "He is writing something on a scroll, I wouldn't worry about it."

That seemed to calm Shikamaru down, which put me at ease. Just then, a cartoonish lion jumped down behind Shikamaru and Choji. I threw a lighting charged kunai at it and ink splattered all over the place. Shikamaru tackled me to the ground and Choji punched another lion and strangled another, causing even more ink to go every which direction. I turned and saw that a near constant stream on lions was jumping out of that guy's scroll. I dashed in his direction, and I saw Shikamaru's shadow right on my heels. This kind of guy, you captured and then turned in to the torture people.

I drew my sword and jumped up to attack him, but he easily deflected it. He had a short ANBU sword. Could this guy really have been in the ANBU? He said, "Well, the last of the Uchiha, I do wonder though, do you even have balls?"

I hadn't been that mad in a long, long time. I shot my chidori blade at him, but he jumped up into the air and disappeared in a swirl of black ink. I sheathed my sword and looked back to Shikamaru and Choji. They looked just as bewildered as I felt. Then Sakura came running and said, "Hey, Sasuke, they got our new teammates ready for us, hurry up, we're late!"

She pissed me off in so many ways, I don't even have words to describe my hatred. I nodded and came along, although reluctantly. Tsunade was waiting for us on the top of the hokage tower. She said, "OK, now that Sasuke is here, these two will be your new team-mates, This is Sai and this is Yamato."

The guy named Yamato waved and the other guy… was that lunatic from before. "Hey, what is this guy's deal?"

He smiled in an irritating way and said, "Sorry, I just wanted to see if I would have to come to the rescue of the baby Uchiha."

"What did you say?"

"Sasuke, we have to work with this guy, cool it," Sakura said, "and you, that wasn't cool either."

"Oh," Sai replied, "But I like ugly girls like you…"

I had to hold her back from murdering that oblivious jackass. Yamato said, "Hey, look, just go and grab your stuff and meet me by the gate when your ready."

He disappeared and so did Sai. "Why does that guy have to replace Naruto? We would be better off without him."

"Yeah, he is very different," Sakura said, "but he isn't worse and that mouth of his kind of remind me of Naruto a bit…"

"Hn! Not at all, Naruto was a ton more fun…!" uh oh, I let some real emotion slip, this could be disastrous, but Sakura just smiled knowingly and said, "You're right, Naruto was a bit more fun."

"hn…"

Sooner than I would have liked, we were on the road, just the four of us. Sai irritated me, he just ground my gears, I don't know how to explain it. It was probably that fake smile, that subconsciously reminded me of Naruto. "We don't need you, if you were to turn around and go home now, I wouldn't blame you, cause Yamato doesn't know you, but Sakura and I already hate you."

"Look, I don't have anything against you, this is just the mission, quit being so emotional," Sai responded.

"You know what, we'd probably be better off without you!"

"Now, now, that is no way to talk to a teammate, Sasuke!" Yamato said, "calm down."

"No! He is not one of us! Even on his best days, all this clown could ever hope to be, is a Naruto wanna-be. He will never be our teammate."

"Fine by me," replied Sai, "the last person I would want to be compared to is some traitorous failure who went to Itachi, a mass-murderer, just to gain power."

"How dare you?" I whispered, my entire body cold with hate.

Sakura put her hand in front of me and said, "regardless of your opinion, you do not know Sasuke or Naruto, so keep your trap shut. But Sasuke doesn't know you all that well, and that does not excuse his behavior either, so please, forgive him."

"Like I said, fine by me."

"Really, oh good…" Sakura dashed up and punched him right in the kisser, "I don't care if you forgive me or not."

"I don't get how you can do a fake smile and I can't… all the books I read say that a smile can diffuse trouble-some situations, but I can't get it down…"

Yamato suddenly made a couple hand-signs and a great wooden cage appeared behind him. It took me a second to register it, but, how in the world did he use wooden ninjutsu. Moktun ninjutsu was the signature technique of the First Hokage, but nobody had been capable of it since him. He opened his eyes and said, "Here are your choices, you will all get locked up in this cage reacquainting yourself with the word, teamwork, or, we can spend a day at a relaxing hot spring. I am more for the kind and gentle approach, but I am not against the more draconian methods of teaching."

Half an hour later, Sai, Yamato and I were sitting in a hot-spring together. Over my training trip with Jiraiya, I had spent a ton of time in hot springs and this was a pretty good one. At first I was against these little forays we would have, but as time went on, a bit of the Monster Perve rubbed off on me, and I came to really appreciate a fine female figure. "Ah, this is a much better way to bond, don't you think, Sasuke?"

Yamato had his scary face on, and while I didn't think it was all that impressive he thought it was. I humphed and let him take it as he would. He was apparently pleased with that answer because he got out of the hotspring and said something about that being enough for him. That was when I felt the towel hiding my privates from the rest of the world slip away from my waist. Sai had it in his hand and he said, "hmm… what do you know, you do have balls."

I nailed him right in his and shouted, "Okay, give me back my towel, and if you mention my balls even one more time, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE SERIOUS ISSUES, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

I heard girly giggles coming from the other side of the barrier separating the hot spring sections from each other. I remembered the invisibility jutsu that Jiraiya had taught me and I prepared for some professional 'research'. I made the tiger hand-sign and then Yamato said, "oh, wait, Sasuke, before I go, let me tell you a story of your master, Lord Jiraiya. A very long time ago, when he was just a boy, he came this close to his death, having broken six ribs, both arms and having several ruptured internal organs. The reason? Supposedly, Lady Tsunade caught him doing precisely what you are about to attempt to do now, so think carefully, what would Sakura do in the same situation?"

I gulped, I had known Sakura to be able to raise hell before her training with Tsunade, but with her new strength, she would kill me before I had much chance to react…. So I stayed back.

The next day, I saw that Sakura was looking at something in Sai's hands. It was a drawing notebook. Sai was just telling her, "…Honestly, when I try to give them titles, nothing good comes to mind. The right words…escape me… so I don't name them at all."

"Is that why you are the way you are?"

Sai just smiled that fake smile back at me and it made me mad at him all over again, so I said, "That's it, I HATE YOU."

"But that is just it, Sasuke, I don't feel anything at all towards you, I am a member of the Foundation, I don't have feelings."

Sakura picked up a book and said, "How can you not feel anything and draw so much?"

"That is mine and I don't show it to other people." Sai snatched it from her hands, "It is my brother's."

"So, how many times a day does he want to kill you?"

"He doesn't, he can't."

"I seriously doubt that…"

"He's dead…"

"Yeah, you're pretty messed up, I get it," I said, "but you're not the only one to have lost family. Naruto is one of the last people I consider my family left and I will do anything to save him, even team up with you…"

"I just don't get it…" Sai said as we walked off to join Yamato.

The next day was the allotted time to meet with the spy from Orochimaru's village. A man was waiting for us on the bridge, in full cloak and jacket, completely concealed. Yamato was in a full Sasori disguise. We waited, and when they started to talk we got a peek under the hood, it was none other than Kabuto. I started to check for other chakra's behind him. I saw one more behind him, it was pure white and it felt familiar… and dark. My jaw dropped, it couldn't be, could it? Sakura touched my arm and said, "what?"

"Orochimaru is here…" I whispered.

Sakura's jaw dropped, the same guy who had attacked Konoha all those years ago during the chunin exam had returned, and Naruto was nowhere to be found. I quickly summoned a toad. He was the kind that could swallow me up and move me somewhere else covertly. I reached out to him and he shot out his tongue and swallowed me whole. "I need you to get me behind Orochimaru, to a point where he can't see me, and do it quietly and as quickly as possible," I shouted to him from inside.

I was jostled around a bit as we moved, but eventually he opened his mouth again so I started with my hand and I pulled myself out. Orochimaru had joined Kabuto on the bridge. Yamato's cover had been blown, and he gave the signal for us to come forward, Sakura and Sai shot forward, but I chose a different approach. I let my shirt fall down around my waist and I activated my curse seal, I had to bring out the big guns right from the get go. Orochimaru made to make a move, so I teleported over there with a poof and shouted, "Chidori Stream!"

The electricity shot Orochimaru and Kabuto back. I drew my sword, coated it with lightning chakra and swung down on Kabuto. He was sliced in half from left shoulder to right hip. I swung at Orochimaru but he grabbed my arm, the only way to block my chidori-charged sword. We locked eyes, my Sharingan to his gleeful yellow snake eyes. I felt the rest of the world melt away in a genjutsu, but something broke it. A sword that could separate it's metal pieces to form a whip had wrapped around Orochimaru's hands. Orochimaru had another body crawl out of his own and he looked around and said, "Shit, they were here the whole time!"

Orochimaru seemed to be burned away by invisible flame. "They went to the north island hideout! We need to go now!" shouted a familiar, but deeper voice. But before I could identify where it was, two black figures had melted away.

Yamato said, "Okay, there is a series of islands just north of here, we'll find them there, I'd put money on it, get up and get going!"

I had turned off the curse mark and was already headed the way that Yamato had pointed. Sai raced ahead of me on a bird cartoon. He was long gone in no time at all. What was he up to?

We came upon a likely spot, and Yamato dug us in. "I don't get it, how did you do it?" Sakura asked.

"I threw a tracking seed on the guys who appeared to fight with Orochimaru. They came here." He said.

Soon we were in and we had split up. My feet were in slight pain due to my running around at top speed on the hard stone floors of an Orochimaru hideout. Intel said that Naruto was nearby, which meant that he was alive after all, my brother hadn't killed him. But why? Why would they want Naruto? Everybody had said they wanted him just for the fox inside him, but to take that out of him should have killed him. I burst through another door. It was empty. "Dammit, where are you?" I shouted into the blackness ahead of me.

The walls were covered in a strange semi-circle of lines pattern, the flickering candlelight made their normally lavender coloring turn into an irritating orange. I sprinted down hallways, Sharingan activated, scanning for the slightest trace of chakra. "I have come so far!" I shouted.

Then I heard an explosion. It was in the opposite direction that I had been running. I turned around and kept running. Eventually I saw light ahead and ran into it, not thinking. Captain Yamato was shielding his eyes from the sun and scanning what was now the top line of a cylindrical crater. Sai dropped an ANBU mask with a fox design. It could have been his, for all I knew. Then I noticed that Sakura was staring up where Yamato was, her eyes large, she whispered, "…Na-ru-to…"

I turned to look up and there he was. His forehead was bare, he had the same birthmarks, his eyes were a cold blue (a sharp contrast to the cerulean I remembered), he was wearing an ANBU uniform, sword and all, only without a mask, which I then realized Sai had in his hands. "This loser too eh? Been a long time…Sasuke," he said.

Anger filled me and I shouted, "Why didn't you kill me on that day? Naruto, You wanted nothing to do with Konoha, but you didn't kill one of your only connections? Why?!"

Naruto didn't even blink as he answered, "I was not mentally or emotionally prepared to kill my best friend, so I let you live. It was on a whim that I let you live, and it is now, on a whim, that I will finish what I started."

Then he blurred next to me. He whispered, "Come to think of it, wasn't it your dream to kill Itachi and restore the Uchiha? If you have time to chase after me, you should be training."

He reached behind his back, and drew his sword. He then flipped it so the blade was opposite his thumb on his fist and swung downwards, towards my back.

"How could I do any of those things," I asked, "if I can't save one friend?"

We made eye contact, and I invaded his mindscape. I wanted to know if he still had the fox inside of him. I was in the shadows of the hallway outside where I saw a gigantic cage. Naruto was looking around, he probably knew I was here somewhere. Then the cage opened. A drop-dead gorgeous woman walked out of it. She was tall, had pronounced cheek bones, red-hair, a crimson kimono and black sash combo, and to top it all off, she had fire-truck red, luscious lips. She said, "What do you need now, and who is our esteemed guest?"

Naruto turned to answer, but then she pointed at me in the shadows and said, "Yes, who is this boy with those cursed red eyes and chakra more foul than my own? A miniature Madara Uchiha, that one."

Naruto locked eyes with me, and I was thrown from his mindscape. Naruto had jumped back onto the ridge, but something was different about his eyes. The areas around his eyes were a vibrant red and his eyes had changed to an odd yellow, and his pupils were like sideways ovals. Yamato stuttered, "Sage mode? But….how?"

Naruto raised one hand above his head and said, "I can do things you cannot possibly understand fool."

"This isn't right," said Sai, "This isn't how it is supposed to be! Sasuke should not be Chasing Naruto!" he fell to his knees, "No. Nothing makes sense! Why…. Why…?"

Naruto whispered, "Wind style: Rasenshuriken!"

What looked like a Rasengan stuck in the middle of a chakra shuriken formed above Naruto's hands. I recognized it, from the second chunin exams! Had he perfected it? He threw it down on Sai, it was a direct hit, but during that chunin exam, he hadn't been able to throw it. It rapidly expanded and then it rotated. I tried to count how fast it was going, but I couldn't keep track, even with my Sharingan. When it faded, Sai was gone. There was nothing left, not even dust. "We need to get out of here!" Yamato yelled, "We aren't even on the same level!"

Naruto grinned and brought out three tri-pronged kunai, but as he was about to throw them, a hand caught his. "They killed Sasori," it was Hinata, "and they seriously wounded Deidara. We didn't even have to fight Orochimaru for the ring, we don't need to make an even bigger scene by using that jutsu!"

Naruto said, "That is weak excuse to not kill them here and now."

"Let's go!"

"Fine." Naruto grabbed her hand and they disappeared in a flash of yellow. Sakura fell to her knees and cried. Yamato began to look for anything left of Sai, but I wanted to see Orochimaru, he might know where they went. So I ran into the hide out. He was in a room, laying in bed. I looked at him and he sent me into a genjutsu once again. Gray matter made up the floor, and darkness served as both walls and ceilings. A lump rose up from the floor, it formed a humanoid figure with the face of Orochimaru. "This is my body transfer technique, I am going to get my hands on those red eyes!"

The floor began to swallow me. I calmly released my curse seal and I took control of that shadow realm. The jutsu backfired and I absorbed him and his chakra. I woke up and sealed him deep down in my mindscape. I walked out of the room and found Sakura had not moved and Yamato was shaking his head at the crater where we had seen Sai die.

"Crying isn't going to make Sai come back…" I said to Sakura, "we need to go back to the village."

She nodded, and we got up and left. We reported back to the village. After the mission review, Tsunade closed her eyes and leaned back into her chair. "So…" she started.

"We're not giving up," I interrupted, "Naruto is still alive and we are going to bring him back."

"I thought you would say that, and from what you have said, Naruto still has the fox inside him for whatever reason. I hear what you are saying about why you think Naruto is trying to save the other hosts, but I don't buy it. I think that is just something he is doing on the side. He has not been a member of the Akatsuki, but now he has a ring and he has been inducted to the organization. But until we know more, I will be sending you on a diplomatic mission, to the Land of Clouds. They currently have two hosts, one of them has disappeared. Men in black robes with red clouds were spotted at the scene. It can only be the Aktasuki. I want you guys to hammer out an alliance with them so we can work together to take these clowns out. You have five days of leave, so do what you feel you need to, and Sasuke, I would like to talk with you personally, would you please walk with me?"

I nodded, so we got up and left the office. We walked to the hospital in complete silence. We got to the sixth floor and Tsunade opened a secret door. Inside was a single bed, with a female patient. She had blonde hair, a form fitting uniform and she was very messed up, she was literally covered in scars of all shapes and sizes. Tsunade handed me a folded piece of paper. I opened it and it read:

Heya Granny,

This chick's name is Yugito Nii, I saved her, but I am pretty sure she will not be accepted by her village now, she doesn't have her beast inside her anymore, a broken weapon in their eyes. I think she has the best chance to survive and thrive with you. I figure that what you do for her, you will, because I can't take care of her anymore, I need to follow the rules and by saving her, I put myself in some hot water as it is… I know you're pretty pissed by this letter, seeing as how a wanted criminal who betrayed you is asking for a favor. But if I know you, then I think you'll want to bet on her in case of a war with Lightning, which is pretty likely at this point. You are the Legendary Sucker! Don't bother trying to find me, the toads won't talk.

Namikaze Naruto

"I thought you said you didn't think that this was the point of Naruto joining the Akatsuki! He wanted to save the hosts! It all makes sense! That was why Naruto left, to save the others like him! He could come back after he did all that!"

"There is only one way out of the Akatsuki…in a box. Naruto will not leave the Akatsuki, this is the only part of him that is still the old Naruto. Recently, the Fire temple, a ninja-monk establishment in the Land of Fire was destroyed, it had Nine-tailed fox written all over it, and people heard laughter from miles away, so what I wanted to show you is that Naruto can still be saved, but, he has changed a great deal, as I understand it, he didn't do this as a goal, but on a whim, he did this because he is like your brother, always looking for a chance to get stronger and measure their own worth. Naruto slaughtered that entire city of monks… can you still forgive him?"

I looked down at Yugito and I said, "I can see what you're saying, but I don't agree, I think that I can show him the way. I just have to remind him that he showed me. This girl, are we going to be helping her out?"

Tsunade nodded and said, "So, here is the deal, when she recovers, you find out as much as you can about her before we let her go back or stay. If she stays, then the Lightning will come after us, but that will only happen if they find out… While Sakura, Yamato, Kakashi and Shizune go to try to figure out what their deal is, you will stay behind and help this girl recover and find out what Naruto has taken from her and what he might have given to her."

I nodded, this would be a good opportunity for me to figure it all out.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

I have finished another chapter, how about that, eh? I rule. Hope you like it, me beta is maintaining radio silence, so please let me know if you see anything stupidly wrong and please rate and review Chasing Naruto!


	7. Chapter 7

Chasing Naruto chapter 7

**Naruto's perspective**

I was running through a tunnel, in pursuit of the Two Tailed beast. Hinata was right behind me, it was our first mission as official members. "Keep her busy," I said, "I need to gather my sage chakra…"

Hinata rushed past me to distract the blonde female. It was a dead-end ahead, a trap. I stood completely still and gathered my sage chakra. I heard an explosion, Yugito had collapsed the tunnel ahead of me. I punched and the rocks shattered. Two blows later and I was through. I pulled a tri-pronged kunai from my belt and threw it at the other

jinchuriki. The blade scratched her, that was all I would need. The seal had transferred from the knife to Yugito's person. I teleported next to her, and punched. She dodged my fist by half an inch, she was skilled, but I was in sage mode, she wasn't even in the same league. The natural energy around my fist hit her, and sent her flying to Hinata.

Hinata was waiting for this, and started her gentle fist combo. Yugito collapsed into the nearby water. She, however, was smiling. I pulled Hinata back just in time. Yugito set the two tails loose. A barrage of fire-balls caused the surrounding walls to explode, revealing the sewer to the entire village. I made eye contact with the beast and entered its mindscape.

Yugito's mindscape was a creepy and pulsing place, much like the stomach of a toad, but it was purple with many different colored dots throughout. Yugito tore off the seal that kept the cat back and it walked out menacingly. I mentally called for my mistress. Kyuubi appeared next to me in a huff and then identified her surroundings. She sauntered up to the cat and flicked it on the nose. It flew backwards and the fire that it seemed to be made of faded, revealing what seemed to be a child with blue hair, blue clothes and odd, different colored eyes. Most tailed beasts, for one reason or another had been messed up by someone mentally, turning them into a monster, the two tails had been driven into insanity young, it seemed. Kyu patted its head, and then sent me out of the mindscape.

Yugito was staring up at me in amazement, and I hit the back of her neck, knocking her out cold. Now that Yugito had destroyed the seal, the removal was all too easy, and done quickly. "We need to get out of here," Hinata notified, "there are three battilions of Lightning ninja headed our way."

I nodded and hurled Yugito over my shoulder. I grabbed Hinata and we teleported away in a flash of yellow light. The Leader awaited us back at the hideout. He looked over at us and said, "Very good, you took her down very quickly, she is still alive, I presume?"

I nodded, and the Leader's face visibly relaxed. I hurled Yugito to the ground and the statue was summoned. I leapt up to my assigned spot and started to donate chakra to the leader's jutsu. Because of the beast's state, it took no longer than an hour to remove it. After the jutsu was completed, I picked up Yugito and brought her to my chamber. Hinata followed me, we set her down on my bed, and I sighed. "So, what are we going to do with her?" Hinata asked.

"There are a few options available to us," I responded.

"We could send her back to her village."

"They would have no use for a broken weapon, we both know how that Raikage guy thinks."

"Then what do you suggest?"

"Well, you know how Master Itachi is sick?"

"Duh…"

I rolled my eyes and said, "Look, what I am getting to is that he has planned out how he is going to die, to the smallest detail, and he sort of let me in on the plan, he has measures to pull the strings of everybody else to put everyone in the exact place he wants. Maybe we should start planning for the future too."

"I agree, but what could this empty shell of a ninja do for us?"

"She provides us a way out of the Akatsuki should we fail our mission and somehow survive."

"Ah, we were trying to help the hosts… clever. This is kind of sudden, do you really think that we'll not be able to pull it off?"

"No, I think we'll pull it off, it is just that, so far, I have heard three people come up with a way to ensure peace, Pervy sage said peace will come through understanding one another, Itachi said that peace will come through individual sacrifice, and I was listening to the leader once a couple years ago, he thinks that peace will be brought about through fear and an understanding of true pain. I am not sure which one is the true path to peace. It is more likely that we'll be wrong before we're right."

"You're a regular ray of sunshine, aren't you?"

"We have gotten four of the nine tailed beasts under our control, not counting my own. I don't know what the leader plans, but I think it is going to be violent in nature. This act could be a kindness to Yugito and it could save our hides from criminal charges."

"I see your point, but be careful, for me?"

I smiled to myself, careful was my middle name. I packed Yugito's body in a frog, and put a scroll in her hand. The scroll contained a note letting Tsunade know what we planned to do with the girl, and then I gave her permission to come up with whatever kind of story she wanted as to how she got the girl. I sent it all away and sighed. Hinata had left once I had started to write the letter, so I was alone, and decided a massage was in order. I changed into my bath robe and flip-flops and went to Churn's room. I picked up her bracelets and tossed them into the water.

Churn motioned for me to come into the water, and I did. She brought me under, forming a bubble around my mouth to breathe and she cleaned me up and then changed the temperature of the water to "ice" and stretched different areas. Eventually, when she was finished, she let me float up to the surface and I just floated there for a while. I had so much to do, and things were going by so fast lately. I decided an efficient use of time would be to make a to do list.

Search Sound village hide-outs to pick up any prisoners that would be useful sleepers, and destroy anything too dangerous.

Archive all of Orochimaru's forbidden jutsu.

Extract any additional Tailed Beasts that the leader wanted me to.

Train

Get Hinata something for Valentines.

Become an official member of the Akatsuki

Stay sexy.

I put those last two on there to cheat a bit, because then I laughed because it looked like I had already done two of the things I had needed to do. I walked over to my map, and I took off Yugito Nii's red pin. I grabbed five white pins and plugged them into the spots of Orochimaru's lairs. One of the said hideouts was near the Land of Waves, and that meant that Hinata's favorite chocolate shop was nearby. I put on my mesh shirt, my overshirt, compression shorts, pants, ANBU armor, sheathed my sword and pulled on my Akatsuki robes. I grabbed my reed hat and went over to Hinata's room, she was just pulling on her own robes. I nodded to her and she rushed out to follow me.

It was quite the walk, and since we didn't want to attract any unwanted attention, we just walked through as slow as any pedestrians. Eventually we came upon the Land of Waves, and in the morning fog, we left the land and started to walk on the water to the island hideout. The place was contained by a gigantic steel door, locked and rusted shut. Hinata made short work of it, and we walked in. It was a prison. Hinata was the one who knew the sleeper jutsu, so she hand picked her favorites and we released the others. Eventually I came upon the jutsu library, and started to systematically take and log them. Leader would be pleased. Once I was done, Hinata burst into the room, dragging a red-head by the hair.

"That looks like it hurts…" I remarked.

"I HOPE IT DOES!"

"What did she do?"

"She has been keeping these people here, they thought Orochimaru was still alive, they didn't know that they belonged to the Akatsuki now, I set most of them free, but those that I kept are amazing specimens."

"But what did she do to you that was so bad?"

"She called me an ugly whore."

I grabbed Hinata, pulled her close and kissed her hard. Her lips were so very soft, and her hands looped around my neck, as my own reached around her waist. She got a little bit into it and pressed herself against me, and I kissed her deeper. After a good thirty seconds, I needed air, so I broke the kiss, Hinata was a bit flustered, but she didn't look at our guest. I walked over to this red-head, and made her look me in the eyes and I said, "I love that girl behind me, more than anybody will ever love you. If you ever say anything that gives her the impression that you are not worshipping her, she will tell me and I will kill you slowly and painfully, got it?"

She spat in my face, so I slapped her, hard. I drew on a bit of red chakra and pulled her face up to mine, she gasped, and I smiled. Then I did one of Itachi's favorite genjutsu, He called it The Will-Breaker. It made her think her bones were on fire, and feel that pain. After ten seconds I let up, five more and she would be totally insane instead of scarred, which was what I wanted. Hinata was blushing furiously, and I smirked at her, and she blushed harder.

That was when one of the prisoners went berserk. He had the ability to turn into water and he seeped in under the door and formed up. He shouted, "Finally, a bit of fresh air! Karin! I thought you'd be here, I have come to pay you back, you see, for all the experiments you have performed on me. Payback is a bitch!"

He turned himself into water and proceeded to drown the girl. I looked over at Hinata and saw that she had an evil glint in her eye. I got out of the way, she was about to make this poor sap her slave. The guy finished killing that cretin and faced us. Hinata flew through some hand signs and then formed a chakra needle from her index finger, and then jammed said needle into the guy's forehead. His eyes glazed over and he was hers. "His name is Suigetsu," she told me, "He was trained to use the Shinobi swords… I can use him. The Blade of Flickering Splendor, he will use it. It was a thoughtful gift, but a tad bit too big for me to use. It'll suit him just fine."

"Okay, cool, whatever makes you happy," I responded.

We left the hideout with our individual profits. I suggested we head over to the market, and Hinata agreed, she loved shopping. I knew that I would end up carrying a boatload of crap, but I would be able to sneak a box of chocolate in there somewhere along the way. When we reached the outskirts of town, we disguised ourselves to look like us, but in casual wear. I did not think anybody would recognize me. I was wrong, stupid wrong. Only I could have been this wrong. As I was struggling to carry an already respectable mountain of stuff, I noticed four people following us. I snapped my fingers and stretched my neck backwards, careful to be casual. The veins around Hinata's eyes revealed themselves and she whispered, "Konoha ANBU, we are in such trouble if we don't get the hell out of here, like, now!"

I could drop this stuff and run, but escape would be unlikely. I could seal it in a scroll and fight them, but that would send only more ANBU later, I needed to get rid of them and keep them away. "Oh crap," Hinata whispered, "We are totally surrounded, sixteen enemies total. They are herding us towards the main square, we can't fight there, too many civilians, we wouldn't know who was attacking…"

"Shit, what do we do?" I asked, "aren't you the strategist?"

"Well, you could just give up…" someone near our right said.

Yugao, she had three more friends, that put the enemy count at twenty of Konoha's best. I just knew I shoulda stayed home today. "Or, you could fight," she said, "and you will be arrested or killed, the Wave authorities know what we are going to do, they left you out to dry, Naruto, we need to talk about your true intentions and your "gift" from the other day. We know how you fight, we have a strategy to neutralize any new jutsu, and we outnumber you ten to one."

They didn't know how I fought now, but they did know that genin from three years ago, which means they have a plan laid out just for him. I, however, was not that genin, but the best way to see how to screw up a trap is to spring it without putting yourself in any real danger. I would play right into it, and then take all of the elements that made it a trap away from them when they cornered me, using completely different tactics. I grabbed Hinata's arm and said, "multi-shadow clone jutsu!"

Thousands of me and Hinata pairings shot off in every which way. Yugao had locked onto the real me, however, and followed behind us. Eventually we came to "The Great Naruto Bridge". I stopped there, and dropped my disguise. Hinata followed suit. Yugao's team and two other teams touched down on the bridge. Someone came flying up behind me and swiped down with a very sharp sword. I got far enough forward that it only cut my robe all the way down the back instead of crippling me. I drew my own sword, disarmed the bold fellow and then used his own sword to disembowel him. I turned and engaged Yugao. She was skilled with a sword, no doubt she had learned from Hayate. I kept up the onslaught on her so she wouldn't notice Hinata knocking out one of every four out, and killing the rest. She would use the gentle fist to knock the first one out, and then proceed to use her own sword to contain and then slash her opponents to ribbons.

Eventually, Yugao used a special ninjutsu on her sword, turning it red and about seven feet long, and charged me. I blocked the blade, but my own sword snapped in half. I replaced myself with a shadow clone and disguised myself as a pedestrian. Yugao took care of the shadow clone quick and began to look for me. I grabbed a tri-pronged kunai and threw it at her. She caught it, and her eyes widened. I formed a Rasengan and teleported next to her. As I shoved the ball of chakra into her torso I shouted, "Flying Thunder God Rasengan combo!"

Yugao flew backwards and spun until she smacked heavily onto a metal pillar. Hinata began sealing away her prizes and I walked up to my target. She was bleeding internally, and almost unconscious, she would die soon without medical treatment. I made her look at me and I smiled, "I was only toying with you today, you saw what I can do, and I haven't even broke a sweat, don't fuck with me, tell Tsunade that!"

She passed out, and I summoned a frog, which took her to the Konoha Hospital. Tsunade should have known better, it would look suspicious if I were to talk to Yugao, Zetsu was always watching. We got back to the base at top speed, and I helped Hinata bring her new toys into her research area. The five ANBU as well as Suigetsu were placed into large cylindrical glass containers, filled with preservative fluids. They would be kept in a virtual coma until Hinata decided how they would best serve our interests. Once that was done, I filed all of the interesting jutsu in the new Akatsuki jutsu library. When I returned to my room, a frog was sitting on my bed. He handed me a note, saluted and then disappeared. I unfolded the sheet of paper.

_Heya Naruto,_

_Wanted you to know that I explained to Tsunade what she did wrong, won't happen again, and I wanted to check in with you, make sure you're not crazy. We'll have to get together again soon, cause I have some stuff I need to tell you, and Tsunade wants to go this time, I told her you will refuse, of course, but she insists I ask. _

_I heard about the sword, Itachi has a new one, we both think will work better for you, go see him when you get the chance. I know you will be pleased with it, later._

_The Gallant J_

I threw the note in the fireplace and went to go see Itachi. He was casually making some food in the kitchen. He washed his hands, set the table for two, and motioned for me to sit. I did. "So, you hear from J yet?" he asked.

I nodded and Itachi said, "Good, so here is your new weapon."

He reached out from under the table and tossed me a sheathed sword. It was slightly unusual because it had no hilt or anything remotely close to a hilt, It was like a sheet of metal, sharpened to a point at one end, and the other had a wrapped area meant to be where I gripped. At the end of the grip was a hoop, with a chain attached to it. On the end of the chain was the whirlpool symbol I used to wear on all my clothes. It had a leather sheathe, which was obviously custom made, and it held the blade in with a strap at the top that would reach over the blade and it had a button on the other side to keep it tight. I noticed immediately that the blade was a bit thin and then Itachi began to speak, "Well, that blade is made for you. It is rather thin, this is because it makes it ideal for wind chakra enhancement. If you put a bit of your wind chakra into it, you should be able to cut through diamonds, so just be careful what you do with it, okay?"

I nodded and then noticed that Itachi had finished cooking, Prime rib, his specialty. I devoured it and then left to get some well-deserved shut eye. I slept until noon the next day. When I woke up, everybody was gone. Itachi, Kisame, Hidan and Kakazu. I eventually found Hinata in the training room, hugging her knees, crying. I dashed up to her, and checked for injuries. She was physically fine. "What is the matter?" I cried.

"I-I-It's I-Itachi…. He told me this morning he was putting his plan into action…"

His plan to die. So soon? How could he be sure Sasuke was even ready? I hugged Hinata and whispered to her that it was all going to be all right. Itachi had been a hard task master, but we had ended up loving him all the more for it, he was like a father to us. I rubbed her back and she calmed down. I carried her over to her room and we just held each other, and tried to make sense of it all. Eventually, someone knocked on the door. It was Konan. She looked at us, and one of her eyebrows arched. "Were you two just…? I don't want to know. The Leader wants you two to go after the six-tails, we recently figured out where he is staying. The Tsuchigomo clan, I believe, is taking care of him, you need to use this opportunity to capture him, while he isn't moving." She picked up the red pin from my map and moved it to a point in the nearby Land of Grass, "He is here, go now, and take him alive…"

She turned on her heel and left. I turned to Hinata and said, "Well, I guess there is no rest for the wicked, let's go."

We traveled for many days and nights, and eventually we came upon a stone pillar in the middle of nowhere. Hinata activated her Byakugan and looked around, "There are traps everywhere, we need to be careful, okay?"

I nodded and she led me on a long and winding path up. On the top was a hut, a pond and a small fort. We walked up to the hut and knocked carefully. An old man opened the door, "Are you back…, sorry, I thought you were someone else. How did you get passed all the traps?"

"We received a warning from a friend," Hinata responded, and then she brought out a picture of the Six-tails host, "Have you seen this man, he called us urgently here, and we owe him a favor. Do you know where he is?"

"Utakata? He went off with Hotaru and that squad of ninja from Konoha, the Gai team… They were and enthusiastic bunch, those ninjas."

"Thanks for the info, can you point us in the right direction?"

The old man pointed north, and we dashed that direction. As we ran, we came upon a squad of Mist hunter-nins. I drew my sword and channeled wind chakra into it and sliced off two heads in one swing, took another one from left shoulder to right hip and the last one I cut down right in half. I hated hunter ninjas, mostly because I knew what it was like to be hunted. We started running again, but something began to feel off… "Hey, Hinata, the natural energy around here, it's moving in the direction we're heading, and gathering up ahead, something's up, we need to keep aware."

Hinata nodded and picked up the pace. Soon, we arrived to see Gai, Tenten and Neji facing off against a horde of villagers, they were fighting to out-last them, so I assumed the villagers were not fighting of their own volition, well, that and that they were drooling and no longer had any color in their eyes. I continued to follow the natural energy. In a set of ruins, not far from the village, Lee, Utakata, a strange man and a girl were facing off. The girl had some huge purple metal thing poking out of her back and no color in her eyes, just like the villagers, so she was probably the Hotaru character the old man talked about. Lee shouted at Utakata, "You're her master, you cannot just let her get used like this, Sir Utakata. She carries a bit of you inside her, it is your duty, you must stop wandering!"

Utakata flinched and then his gaze hardened. The other man, laughed and then relased something. White natural energy exploded out from the girl, and I lost my balance and fell. I drew my sword and four of my special kunai. I threw them at each of the people involved in this fight. First I knocked out Lee, then the nameless guy, then I tossed Hotaru to Hinata and I faced Utakata. "We are from the organization called Akatsuki, we are here to bring you in so we can take away that monster inside you, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

He picked the hard way, they all do. The idea of using my Sage chakra around the girl made me nervous, so I didn't do it, instead, I pulled out four tails of red chakra. I shouted, "Tailed beast version 2!"

I was in complete control of the chakra that usually would act of its own accord. I had gained the ability to control my mistress's chakra over time, now, I was a pro. The guy's eyes widened, and I charged up and shot the beam attack that comes naturally to tailed beasts. Utakata had gotten just barely out of the way, but the rubble above him fell down, and landed on his legs. He struggled to break free, but it didn't work, I walked over to him and smacked his head with the ring on the end of my sword. I dragged him out from under the rubble, to find Hinata playing with the metal in Hotaru's back. Eventually, she got it to open up. She pulled out a crystal.

She rushed through a couple symbols and summoned a frog. She scribbled something down and patted the frog on the head and handed it the note. The frog poofed away. She was going to have the crystal studied by the experts of natural energy. Then Team Gai rolled up. They saw Lee down, and looked at us. Neji, thinking quickly, used wind to blow the hats off our heads. They stared for a second, and then Tenten and Gai charged. Hinata flew into a rage, and dashed after Neji. I delivered a solid blow to Gai's face, and countered Tenten's staff. I wrenched her neck the wrong way, and it snapped. I yanked my sword free from its sheathe and stabbed Gai right in the heart.

Someone kicked me. It had to have been Lee, because I recognized he was performing the Primary Lotus. I grabbed his hand from behind his back, turned and grabbed his other hand, and then flipped myself and Lee with me, and threw him into a rock. Lee tried to move, but I drew a kunai and stabbed him in the kidneys and then the liver. He would bleed out. Hinata was holding Neji in the air by his neck, and she dropped him. "I won't kill you cousin, you must suffer as I have…" she dropped him and knocked him out. He would wake up too late to do anything for his team. I wrenched my sword from Gai's chest and cleaned it off on his clothes. Gai grabbed my collar and pulled me to his face and asked, "Why? Naruto… why did you leave us, Naruto? Wh…"

Hinata killed the guy who had been using Hotaru and we were on our way, Utakata on my shoulder. We left Hotaru on the ground, the only other survivor besides Neji. We stole the beast from Utakata and I secretly took him back to where we had left Hotaru. She was still there, crying, so I dropped into the clearing, she saw me and Utakata, and I dropped him on the floor. I turned and ran away full tilt, she couldn't know that I felt so badly, I wouldn't let her see the tears.

When we got back, the leader called a meeting. We met using the astral projection jutsu. "Well, I have good news and bad news," he said, "the good news is, there are only three more hosts for us to capture, the bad news, Hidan and Kakazu are dead."

My jaw dropped, Kakazu had essentially five lives and Hidan was immortal. The leader continued, "I am sending Itachi and Kisame after the four tails and Naruto and Hinata after the seven tails. I will be sending Zetsu as back-up for Kisame and Tobi will be back up for you, Naruto."

My head was pounding, we were short two members. I nodded to show that I understood and I walked out. I needed to sleep. The next day, Hinata woke me up and said, "Hey, look, I talked to Tobi, he understands that you need a break, we have the next two days off for Tobi to get over to us anyways, so take it easy, that's an order."

I got up and ate, read some new jutsu scrolls, and spent the remainder of the day in the hot springs. On the second day I snuck out to the nearby village and bought Hinata a box of chocolate for Valentines day. Then I collapsed again, dead tired. When I woke up on the third day, Tobi was waiting for us. He waved enthusiastically. "Hey guys!" he shouted, "Oh man, this is so exciting, to work with Naruto and Hinata, the Demon himself and the Bloody Valentine, I can't wait!"

His screechy voice was already giving me a head ache. I nodded and he just kept on talking and talking. I don't know how Zetsu handled it. I would have to ask him myself. Eventually we started off, and were quickly headed after the seven tails. Half way to the waterfall village, we got word from a seagull that the seven tails was seeking sanctuary in Konoha and was on route at that very moment. We quickened the pace considerably. Hinata activated her Byakugan and we just kept running. Eventually Hinata said, "Got her, she is on her own, and heading towards a group of Konoha ninja, Sasuke, and that Yugito character."

"Tobi, you're with me, Hinata, take care of our target, we'll take care of Sasuke," I said.

"He is two kilometers east of us right now."

I bounded off to the east. Eventually I found him and jumped down behind him. He dashed forwards and turned around. "I'd hoped they'd send you, Naruto, we need to talk, you have some explaining to do, about Yugito, about the other hosts, about Team Gai and your real loyalties."

"I don't care to answer you, all that I care about is that I get to kill you today."

If I did, then Itachi wouldn't have to die for no good reason. Sasuke wasn't worthy of Itachi. And Itachi would be mad at me, but he would be alive. I drew my sword.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

Yeah, so next chapter will be all Sasuke. I hope you liked this chapter, I worked pretty hard on it, thanks go out to my amazing Beta, and please rate and review

You all rule,

IPOD384


	8. Chapter 8

Chasing Naruto chapter 8

**Sasuke's perspective**

Yugito was a blonde, attractive female ninja, with quite the attitude. She was extremely independent, and wanted nothing to do with me. Probably the reason I thought she was so alluring. But she and I were assigned to work together. So I had checked in on her every day while she recovered from her battle with Naruto. Whenever I asked her about the battle she nearly had a panic attack, and from what I gathered from her past, she was a battle hardened veteran, which meant that Naruto had probably toyed with her and then punched in the reality of the difference in power. One day, as I went to check in on her, she was dressed in her Lightning shinobi wear, waiting. I noticed that she wasn't wearing her Lightning headband, but she wasn't wearing a Konoha one either. She looked up at me, her cool, blue eyes and I immediately felt the force of her personality. "You, I'm ready to train now," she said, "your Lady Hokage cleared me, let's head out to the training ground."

I nodded and we walked to the grounds. A new Genin team was going through some basic teamwork missions together against their master, it was Konohamaru's squad. It reminded me of Naruto, and those days we had spent together, that while I hadn't enjoyed them then, I looked back on them with a certain amount of fondness. Yugito saw me stop and looked on to the exercise, "So," she said, "What is the significance of this? Don't tell me I have to start here as a Genin!"

"No," I said, "My first squad used to do this exact drill, it was me, Sakura, Kakashi and Naruto…"

She flinched when I said his name and then she turned to me and said, "He was on your team?! Oh… that explains why… I was going to ask you why you cared so much about that guy."

"He's my best friend."

"Was."

"Is."

"He went rogue."

"So have you. You don't know the first thing about Naruto."

"I know he nearly killed me, that is enough to hate someone in my book."

I didn't say anything because she didn't get it, she couldn't possibly have understood, she hadn't known him before he'd snapped. I could try to show her, so I pulled out a picture, an old one, with a smiling Naruto, myself grimacing (I HATE photos), Sakura smiling and Kakashi eye-smiling above it all. Yugito looked at it, and I handed it to her as I said, "When I think of Naruto, this is the guy who I think of."

Yugito looked wary, then pulled out a scroll and several colored pencils. She drew amazingly fast, and showed me a picture of a man with a shock of blonde hair, evil ice-blue , vertical slit eyes, Akatsuki robes, three tri-pronged kunai in his right hand and a Rasengan in the other. He didn't quite have fangs, but his teeth were unnaturally sharp and there was a maniacal smile on his face. "This is the creature that I think of when I hear the name Naruto."

I took this scroll and said, "Do you mind if I show this picture to the ANBU they'll change the picture in the bingo book."

She shook her head and I sent the scroll along using a toad. We finally got to a nice open space and I turned to her, "So, I have been instructed to teach you a certain jutsu. I have been feeling your chakra while you recovered, so I know that you are a lightning type and you have a great amount of chakra, even without the two tails. I am going to teach you how to use my own ultimate jutsu, Kirin, the thunderclap. So, first, I will demonstrate on that nearby tree, okay?"

Yugito nodded and sat down. I looked up, there weren't many clouds in the sky, that would change soon. I blazed through the hand signs for the first shouted, "Fire Style: Dragon Flame jutsu!"

I shot three giant dragon shaped fireballs into the sky. Clouds formed, I put a bit of lightning chakra into my hand, and the lightning form of Kirin peeked out of the clouds. I brought my hand down and Kirin flashed down and struck the tree, disintegrating it. I looked over at Yugito and she was in awe. I offered her my hand and I said, "Okay, so the first step is fire, do you know any fire ninjutsu?"

She shook her head numbly as she took my hand and I pulled her up to her feet. I was aching from doing that jutsu, so I made sure to walk slowly. I lead her to the bridge where I had learned my first fire move and I showed her the handsigns and displayed, "Fire Style: Grand Fireball jutsu!"

The fireball was maybe seven feet in diameter, and normally I could have done better, but I was tired. Yugito went through the signs and tried the jutsu, but only smoke emerged from her mouth. I nodded and said, "try again, put more passion into it, the only way it will work."

"What? You're the most stoic person I know, how can you tell me to put passion into something?!"

"I am very passionate about certain things."

"Does that make you a pyro?"

I ignored her and motioned for her to repeat her effort. She sent out sparks the second try, and progressed slowly along. We started at noon, and at six she had a small globe of fire. I insisted we stop to find her somewhere to stay. She obliged, albeit, reluctantly. She was stubborn, I liked her. We checked in at nearly five apartment complexes, but no cigar. Eventually Yugito stopped me and pointed over to a building nearby. It was three stories of small apartments, the top floor with a handmade balcony outside its door. "You don't want to live there," I warned her.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because nobody lives there anymore, nobody wants to."

"Why, it looks perfectly good."

"That is where Naruto used to live."

Yugito eyed me in surprise and jumped over to see it. I walked over and she was playing with the door knob. I opened it and the door creaked open. Dust covered the place and I walked in, but I confess it felt like I was walking into a crypt. I found the bedroom. It was pretty neat, if covered in dust. On the bed, was a picture, in a picture frame. I picked it up, it was the old picture of team seven. I noticed that there were spots with less dust on them than others. They were lines going from the center down to the frame, could they have been tear-marks? I fell to my knees and I felt my grief wash over me. Yugito walked in and said, "How can you call yourself a man when you are so out of control? You know, I understand emotional men and I understand stoic men, but you… you're all over the place, it's disgusting, are you hot or cold, emotional or emotionless, black or white? What are you, Sasuke Uchiha?"

I thought about it, Jiraiya had once said that a person was a collection of their experiences. I had had a ton of bad stuff happen to me, and I could trace it all back to my elder brother, Itachi Uchiha. "I am," I said, "an avenger."

I walked out of the crypt of my best friend and at the next apartment complex I basically told the landlord he was going to rent something out to Yugito, who, obliged by giving her his room. I went home, and collapsed onto my bed, there was so much I didn't understand. It was too much, but sleep always helped me think so I drifted to oblivion. I awoke to a slight knocking noise on my door. Yugito was at the door. "Ready to start?" she asked.

"Get a head start without me… I need to do some things."

She nodded amicably, I just hoped she hadn't figured out the things I had to do were shower and change my clothes. She was a Jonin, who was I kidding myself? I did what I had to do as fast as I could, leaving nothing out, but rushing through some things. I walked to the training ground and Yugito was waiting. She motioned for me to watch and she went through the signs and spouted a ball of flame ten feet in diameter. I almost started clapping, but instead I walked out next to her and breezed through my own hand signs and shouted, "Fire Style: Dragon Flame jutsu!"

A singular dragon shot out and swirled through the air and around us, and finally submerged in the lake. "This jutsu is directed by your mind, so be careful not to focus on yourself as you do it, you'll attract your own jutsu to yourself and turn yourself into an accidental suicide bomber."

She started laughing, and I realized that I could have phrased that better, it sounded like I thought it was a joke, but I was dead serious. I rolled my eyes and she laughed harder still. "What?" I asked.

"You're such a dumbass!" she cackled.

"Do the damn jutsu!"

She went through the signs and shot out a dragon, which promptly crashed into a nearby tree, lighting it aflame. I stared at her in what was my best blank-eyed stare, I asked, "Really? Really?! You focused on the tree? The cement is non-flammable, the water would have put it out, but you focused on the big-ass, older than you or I tree?"

She burst into laughter and literally collapsed and started to roll around on the deck. I rolled my eyes and prayed to whatever god their was she wouldn't do this on the battlefield. "Glad to see everyone is having fun," it was Tsunade.

I looked over to her and noticed Yugito had stopped laughing and was working very hard very fast to put the tree out. Tsunade watched for a bit and then said, "Asuma's team encountered two Akatsuki… two new ones, we got Intel on their moves now, but we paid a heavy price…"

"Don't tell me…" I looked over at her, horrified.

"Asuma died."

I was shocked, he was going to have a baby in four months. "Oh shit… What about Kurenai, has anybody told her yet?"

"No, Shikamaru volunteered, so maybe she does know now, but I haven't told her yet."

"So, you want me to step this process up?"

"Precisely."

"oh, shit…shit shit shit!" I cursed, "That won't be easy, I can train her to use it in three days, but to use in combat is totally different from in training, I can tell you that much… shity shit shit!"

"In three days the response team leaves without you… so be ready or get left behind."

Yugito was standing behind and to my right, "Did you catch all that?" I asked.

She nodded and then turned around and started practicing. Her dragons were too small to do much damage. I egged her on and by the end of the day, she had a nice-sized jutsu ready to go. I told her to try to get two out at once and she barely did it, and they were pretty small. So I went and got food and soldier pills and we ate and she fueled up again so she could keep going into the night. By midnight she could shoot five in one volley, fully sized. I sent her home to sleep and I caught a few hours as well. In the morning, we went down again, but this time, I explained how to attract the real lightning from the sky. It was like making your hand into an lightning rod and then redirecting the lightning bolt's trajectory to your opponent. She got the concept, but it would only take one shot for mastery, so I shot twenty-five dragons into the air and artificial thunderheads formed over Konoha. Yugito brought her hand up into the air and she called Kirin forth. Then she directed its fury towards the lake. Kirin flashed down and destroyed the entire lake. Nothing was left, it was totally evaporated and the sand below had turned to mere scorched earth. Yugito collapsed from the effort but she understood the power of this move. I could see it in her eyes. I let her rest for the rest of the day while I went to Asuma's funeral. I hadn't known him very well, but he was a good man and a great ninja. Shikamaru was pretty broken up and Kurenai wouldn't stop crying.

On the next day, I found that Tsunade had sent Shikamaru's squad plus Kakashi out ahead of us. The second squad would be me, Sakura, Yamato and Yugito. We went all out to catch up to them. It took us most of the day to catch up to them, but eventually we found Kakashi cornered, Choji and Ino trying to fend off what looked like possessed surgical threads. Noticed Kakashi was specifically trying to avoid not only the crazy dude who was obviously Akatsuki, but also avoiding two huge monsters made out of the possessed surgical thread. Yamato and Sakura jumped in to save Ino and Choji, while I charged my sword with Chidori and sliced down the crazy man's back. I was very careful to hit his heart and other vitals. He collapsed and Kakashi pushed me off my feet and away from the body, he shouted, "The monsters will keep him alive, kill them too! Sakura, Blondie, go help Shikamaru, he's to the west of here, and fighting the other one solo!"

Yamato kept guard over Ino and Choji while I destroyed one creature with one well timed strike and then lit the other one on fire. Kakashi collapsed onto a nearby tree and looked to be still slightly under the weather. I looked at Yamato and we headed over to the west to check up on Shikamaru too.

He had it covered quite nicely, however. He was alone, standing over a pile of rubble, which this opponent was presumable under. He was coughing, but trying to smoke a cigarette, just like Asuma always used to do. We locked eyes and he nodded, a cool and collected mask, but I could tell he was just about ripped to shreds on the inside. We all went back to make sure that Ino and Choji were still ok.

They weren't. They were pretty badly mauled and a person in Akatsuki robes stood over them. The person removed their hat to reveal long, black hair. She turned around and there was Hinata Hyuuga, her hand seemingly petting a dinosaur-like creature made of lightning. "Ahh, here come the people we were looking for, Silverbolt!"

I blurred over to her and got my fingers around her throat. I picked her up and began to choke her. "Where are Itachi and Naruto?" I demanded.

She brought her right index finger to her face and pulled her eyelid down and extended her tongue out her mouth and poofed away. I found that something was still in my hand though, it was that lightning creature. Turns out, the creature actually was made of lightning. I felt over ten thousand volts of electricity go through my hand and then the rest of my body and I flew back twenty feet into a dead tree behind me. I saw my hand was burnt to the extreme and colors were flashing in front of my eyes.

I heard the sounds of battle, then I felt an oppressive heat and a roar from a creature that must have been like twenty lions put together. That shook me out of my funk and I climbed out of the tree. As I regained my balance, I felt fingers wrap around my throat. Hinata lifted me into the air and said, "Funny… is this familiar to you too? Have we done this before? Oh, yes we have, but the positions were reversed, weren't they? Don't turn into lightning on me now, okay? What a gentleman!"

She was smiling as she said those things in a powerful and confident voice, which was terrifying in its own ways. I activated my Sharingan and Hinata activated her Byakugan. "Really?" she asked me, "That's all you've got? Itachi wanted me to find out how far you'd progressed and here you are, pathetic eyes and trying to cast a genjutsu that wouldn't fool Genin… such a disappointment, and Itachi wanted to meet up with you at one of the old Uchiha hideouts in a month… talk about old times, I'd imagine… but you're just not strong enough, which is why he asked me to do this to you, just in case…"

Her eyes swirled and left the image of Itachi's Mangekyo mixed in and then totally dominated her eyes. I was trapped in the Nightmare Realm, Tsukoyomi. I relived the destruction of the Uchiha and then failing to capture Naruto, and then I got to see a picture of Naruto in the middle of a fight against some random Konoha ANB U, he destroyed them and left only the leader barely alive. She dropped me and I collapsed. I heard the roar of that animal again and the flapping of wings, but then there was nothing. Three hours later, Konoha ANBU found us, everyone had survived, but we were all carrying new scars. I was in intensive care for several days. When I woke up, Tsunade was waiting for me. She walked in and shouted at me, "What the fuck happened to you? We really needed you in the past couple of days! What could have possibly done this to two entire squads of my best?!"

"Hinata… used Itachi's Sharingan…"

Tsunade stared at me for a long time, speechless. She sat down and held her head in her hands. "What else happened?" I asked.

"Naruto struck again… a lot closer to home this time than just the Fire temple."

"The ANBU?"

"How did you know?"

"Hinata made me watch it in graphic detail…"

"I still can't seem to grasp the implications of Hinata using the Sharingan."

"The old texts say that certain jutsu can be implanted in the eyes of others through the Sharingan, she was just a carrier."

Sakura chose that time to burst into the door. She blurted out, "Tsunade! Neji's returned! The rest of Team Guy isn't with him! He wants to talk to you."

Tsunade stood up and I did too, she looked at me disapprovingly, but I said, "You said you'd needed me the past couple days, well, I'm here now."

She sighed and started walking. Neji was in bad shape, and he saw me and then looked to Tsunade. She said, "It's okay, give your report, he's cleared."

He went right into it, "One of the people we were supposed to guard was close with the six tails host. The six tails was targeted by the Akatsuki during our mission. Naruto and Hinata showed up. Hinata beat me within an inch of my life, but spared me again, and Naruto killed everyone else with the exception of the host, whom they both took away."

"What do you mean everyone? The target? The target's friends?"

"Everyone involved except me."

"You're not serious…"

"I have never been so serious. I can't believe she won't kill me."

"From what I understand, you did the same thing to her during your first Chunin exams, she is going to play with you before she destroys you." Tsunade said.

"I know. I think I'm going to start drinking."

He walked out of the room and Tsunade sent Sakura to tail him. I was speechless. "Who's side is he on?" I asked, "Is he on ours? The Hosts'? The Akatsuki's? Is he just so nuts that he is just killing people? What is going on with you, Naruto!?"

I shouted at him, and I knew he wasn't there, but I hoped he could feel it, my pain, my confusion, and my building hatred for these games. Tsunade looked at me and said, "You know, the only thing I can see as a way to figure it all out is to beat it out of someone. We know where Itachi is going to be in two days, it's time to go after him, Sasuke. You're ready."

I nodded and I steadied myself. I had to pick my team. Tsunade said, "I'll have a team ready tomorrow morning, rest until then."

I went home, and I tried, but to no avail, sleep escaped me. The next morning, a gigantic team was waiting at the gates. Kakashi, Yamato, Sakura, Yugito, Shino, Kiba, and his sister Hana. I looked them over and I said, "Our mission is to find, interrogate and kill Itachi Uchiha. He is in one of the Uchiha hideouts, right about now. Let's go."

Kakashi summoned his dogs and we all split up, each group going to an Uchiha base. Eventually I stopped running to rest and I heard leaves rustle behind me. I turned and saw Naruto. "We need to talk Naruto," I said, "about what you're doing and about your true allegiances."

He mumbled something and drew his sword. He touched his blade and wind chakra filled it and extended its blade. He blurred behind me and swept it down. I jumped forward, turned and punched. He dodged just barely and cut my Achilles tendon with his blade. I kicked it out of his hand somehow in the process. He jumped back and threw five tri-pronged kunai at me. I deflected them all and he narrowed his eyes. He formed then shadow clones and had five circle me while the other five stopped moving entirely. Red rings formed around his eyes and he dispelled his clones and opened his eyes to reveal yellow irises and horizontal oval pupils. He punched at me and I felt it even though he missed.

He punched at me and hit this time, and I felt like I had gotten hit by a freight train. When I opened my eyes, he was standing over me, looking down. He had his sword and it was at my neck. He had won, beaten me utterly. It was beyond irritating. He hesitated and I shot ten Dragon Flames into the sky. I jumped up and dodged his next few attempts at my life, and once the thunderheads had formed, I channeled chakra into my right hand, and I shouted, "Lightning style: Kirin, The Thunderclap!"

The jutsu rushed down and struck him in a flash of blue, with highlights of yellow. I heard someone whistle, Naruto was next to me, totally unscathed. He asked, "You can't do that again, can you? That would be pretty ridiculous."

I was speechless, and Naruto shrugged and raised his hand and began to form a jutsu, when an arm caught his. It was Itachi's partner, from all those years ago, the shark man. "This isn't like you, Naruto," he said, "Itachi has a plan, stick with it. You know better, Itachi doesn't look or sound mad, but I would be careful in your position."

Naruto tore his hand from the Sharkman's grip he snapped, "What are you doing here Kisame?"

Kisame rolled his eyes and said, "Preventing you from doing what you were going to do a second ago, and the Leader wants to see you, after all, Hinata caught the seven tails only minutes ago, you go, I'll deal with Itachi's little brother."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" I shouted and Kisame looked at me with a very scary smile, it sent chills down my spine.

Kisame said, "Oh, I won't hurt you, Itachi made special care to ask me not to. Oh, and before I forget, Naruto?"

Naruto looked at him.

"I would make sure you put out that fire on your robe."

"Oh, fuck!" he shouted and tore off his robes. Underneath he wore a similar outfit to the one he had always worn, but instead of blue, there was black. He stomped on his robes and took off. Kisame threw me over his shoulder and took me away from the battle site. He found the Konoha camp and tossed me down by the campfire. Everyone stared and Kisame poofed away. Sakura set to healing me immediately and I didn't make eye contact with anybody else there, they were all fine, not a scratch on them, but I had gotten my ass handed to me, yet again.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

So I took my time with this chapter… didn't I? I hope you like it anyway!

IPOD384


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